Innovation for all of us

Professor Parthasarathy is engaged in multiple research projects to reimagine the innovation system to achieve much more expansive social benefit.

US innovation policies have traditionally served the public interest by expanding the scientific enterprise, including the workforce, and making new technologies available through the marketplace. But this approach has a few problems. Technologies may be inaccessible or unaffordable, and those that are available often do not serve the needs of—and sometimes even actively harm—those who are already disadvantaged.

The EMPOWER project

aims to serve the needs of local community partners and governments when it comes to emerging science and technology, from building AI based on community knowledge and needs to producing policy briefs and reports to empower communities to participate in public and policy discourse.

Conference on Technology in and for Society, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

December 6-7, 2021

• How can policy help incentivize and structure platforms for co-creation among relevant actors – such as knowledge producers, entrepreneurs, co-owners, research participants, etc. – and how can these platforms help produce just and inclusive transitions?

• What are the tools and mechanisms for involving more diverse actors earlier in the development of new technologies?

• What are some current experiments in promoting diversity in the development of emerging technologies?

Related Writing

  • Innovative Thinking Could Make New Sickle Cell Treatments More Accessible

    Scientific American. May 22, 2024

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  • Bringing Communities In, Achieving AI for All

    Issues in Science and Technology, Summer 2024.

    Read

  • Can Innovation Serve the Public Good?

    Boston Review, July 2023.

    Read

  • How to Be an Epistemic Trespasser

    Historical Studies of the Natural Sciences, March 2022.

    Read

  • Innovation as a Force for Equity

    Issues in Science and Technology. Winter 2022.

    Read

  • Health Innovation Policy for the People

    The Next System Project. November 18, 2021

    Read

  • Innovation Policy, Structural Inequality, and COVID-19

    Democratic Theory. 2020

    Read

Recent Interviews and Media

  • The Innovation Gap with Professor Shobita Parthasarathy

    Crooked Media. January 11, 2022.

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  • Cells for sale

    Planet Money Indicator Podcast (NPR). December 20, 2021.

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  • 'Immortal' Henrietta Lacks' Family Says Biotech Firms Are Still Using Her Cells Like 'Chattel'

    The Daily Beast. October 5, 2021

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  • DOE Gearing Up to Bring Equity Agenda to Energy Technology

    FYI Science Policy New. July 29, 2021

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  • Chris Coons Working to Install Business-Friendly Candidate for Key Patent Position.

    The American Prospect. May 24, 2021

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  • Biden Has Elevated the Job Science Adviser. Is That What Science Needs?

    The New York Times. April 29, 2021

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  • A new kind of climate expert enters CEQ

    E&E News (reprinted in Scientific American). March 5, 2021

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