The OECD Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook 2021 is the latest in a series that reviews key trends in science, technology and innovation (STI) policy in OECD countries and several major partner economies. This edition focuses on the COVID-19 pandemic, which has triggered an unprecedented mobilisation of the science and innovation communities.

STI systems have responded strongly and flexibly to the COVID-19 crisis. Newly funded research initiatives worth billions of dollars have been set up in record time, and research and innovation have led to the rapid development of vaccines. However, the pandemic has stretched STI systems to their limits, revealing areas that need strengthening to improve overall STI resilience for both future and present challenges, including climate change.

The COVID-19 pandemic has called for science, technology and innovation (STI) to provide solutions. At the same time it poses major challenges for STI systems, and there remains uncertainty on its near-term and long-term impacts. This chapter outlines the STI policy responses to the COVID-19 shock and the effects of the crisis on STI systems. It offers a stylised framework for governments to systematically monitor the evolution of the crisis and its consequences from an STI policy perspective. It discusses a series of “critical pivot points”, where future developments could go in radically different directions. The chapter concludes by discussing how STI policy can best contribute to shaping those critical pivot points to support a transition towards more equitable, sustainable and resilient futures.

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an unprecedented mobilisation of the scientific community. In record time, public research agencies and organisations, private foundations and charities, and the health industry at large have set up an array of newly funded research initiatives worth billions of dollars. Nevertheless, this exceptional response from the scientific system has also revealed many challenges. This chapter examines how the scientific community has been mobilised during the COVID-19 crisis, with a particular focus on funding and infrastructures. It explores how the lessons learned can be extrapolated to other crisis situations and the operations of science more broadly, drawing policy implications for science policy makers and administrators, such as the need for better preparedness, for flexible funding mechanisms, for new policies related to early publications of scientific results, and for strengthening the overall resilience of the research system.

Academic career structures and the allocation processes for research funding largely reflect merit-based competition among individuals, which has proven its effectiveness over time in promoting excellence in fundamental research. However, concern is growing about how these structures and processes affect the precarity and attractiveness of research careers and generate a lack of diversity in the scientific workforce. There is an expectation that science will not only produce highly-cited publications, but also rapidly translate into societal benefits and solutions to global challenges – such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The emphasis on individual disciplinary excellence and short-term outputs fits uneasily alongside the need for more transdisciplinary research, more novelty and risk-taking in research, and more data-intensive research. This chapter reviews recent OECD analysis of the challenges within science systems, many of which are accentuated by COVID-19, and what these imply for policy measures to build a diverse, appropriately skilled and motivated science workforce.

What factors and trends have led to today’s patterns of government support for innovation in OECD economies? How has this helped shape current innovation systems? How is it relevant towards addressing the causes and effects of the current crisis? This chapter reviews how governments allocate public resources towards research and innovation, drawing in part on recent evidence from OECD projects. These interact with other major public policy discussions on the nature of government intervention and the breadth of innovation activities, as well as international debate around which subsidies are permissible today across highly interconnected economies. The chapter explores how the COVID-19 crisis may result in shifts in the volume, nature and direction of public support for innovation. It concludes with possible scenarios and their impact on the way governments will sustain future innovation activity in their societies.

Collaboration lies at the heart of the science, technology and innovation (STI) response to COVID-19, where national and international collaborative platforms for technology are revolutionising vaccine design and production. The chapter argues that policy makers should capitalise on the momentum from the international community’s response to COVID-19 to re-focus international STI co-operation on global public goods problems through greater transdisciplinary research, new public-private funding mechanisms, and stronger collaborative innovation models.

Robots are an iconic technology of the digital era, whose sophistication and diversity are growing rapidly. Autonomous vehicles, drones and automated vacuum cleaners are all widely known. Laboratory robots; collaborative industrial robots; ocean-going, space-faring, search-and-rescue robots; and robot surgeons, among many others, are less widely known. Progress in robotics is essential to make life easier, cleaner, healthier and richer. Robots have also aided the response to COVID-19, but their potential to help manage a range of crises is just beginning to be tapped. Robotics could play a major role in healthcare, increasing the resilience of health systems. Their role in combating future waves of the virus, or entirely new contagions, should be recognised and supported. Governments should scale up investment in research and development for robotics, support the wider diffusion of robots, and develop standards and innovation-friendly regulation. This chapter examines frontier developments in robotics, emerging applications across society and the diverse impacts of robots. Governments can use a number of tools to accelerate the deployment of socially valuable robot systems. They should act now.

Life science innovation will be critical for addressing the major challenges of our time, from pandemics, through climate change, to transitioning to sustainable production systems. Synthetic biology, also known as “engineering biology”, aims to harness biologic processes to act as a platform technology across a wide range of key economic sectors. What is required to create the enabling conditions for the field, and how might the field contribute solutions to the complex problems we face? This chapter locates the challenges of the pandemic and sustainability, writ large within the landscape of key advantages and advances in engineering biology. Beginning with the “biofoundry”, these approaches to engineering practice promise to open up new opportunities for manufacturing. These span a wide range of sectors and products, whether new materials, greener chemicals or – most pertinent for this particular moment – diagnostics and vaccines.

In contrast to the 2008-09 global financial crisis, science, technology and innovation is central to providing solutions to the COVID-19 crisis, and is clearly seen to be doing so. These solutions are shaped by the ways in which governments organise themselves, the sorts of relationships they have with other groups, including businesses and civil society organisations, and the resources they have at their disposal, including expertise and other capabilities. The chapter focuses on how various governance arrangements deployed by countries influence both their response to the current crisis and their scope for dealing with the challenges of the recovery phase. It covers governments’ use of scientific advice to underpin COVID-19 policy, its use of digital tools to improve policy design and tackle the misinformation “infodemic”, and its approaches to cross-government coordination. The chapter also covers governments’ experiments with mission-oriented innovation policies and responsible innovation practices.