Previous Events

The Institute for Globalisation and International Regulation at Maastricht University Faculty of Law and the Stockholm Network Intellectual Property & Competition Programme are delighted to invite you to a forum and debate on "Intellectual Property, Open Source and Standards: Friends or Foes?

The importance of standards to our societies is growing as technology moves into increasingly complex territories, and competing companies are inclined to establish common ground. This common ground helps to ensure that the assortment of technological possibilities is kept to a necessary minimum, whilst also establishing a widespread level of compatibility and quality. Standards offer a shared language that technologies use to communicate with one another, allowing for greater interaction between products or components. This can mean improved interoperability, interconnectivity, and commoditisation – all buzzwords for a more beneficial market.

In the discussion on standards, a distinction (and at times even a dichotomy) is often made between standards based on proprietary efforts - which are to be protected by intellectual property rights - and standards that are based on collaborative or open efforts - such as via an open source. Indeed, there is a heated Europe-wide debate on the nature and characteristics of future technological standards, not least in the context of government procurement and policies in this area (such as the Expert Panel for the Review of the European Standardization System).

This event aims to address some of the burning issues in the standards debate. Key questions to be discussed include: Should standards be based on open-efforts or on proprietary models? Should countries in Europe opt for a more specific model of standardisation? How should we consider the relationship between patents and standards, and what are the implications of not allowing standards to be protected by IPRs? Is the dichotomy between open and proprietary standards at all justified, or are these types of standards in fact complimentary?

To RSVP please contact Dr Cristina Palomares, Chief Operating Officer, Stockholm Network on T +44 20 7354 8888, F: +44 20 7359 8888 or via e-mail on: cristina@stockholm-network.org

Since the global downturn, debates about the nature and role of markets and governments have become more heated than ever. Markets appear to be taking the blame for the financial crisis, while governments increasingly look to their own resources rather than to business to solve the crisis. What does this mean for the role of the state and indeed for the future of markets? The time is ripe for us to revisit these central questions.

When the global economy is in good shape and markets are on the rise, the need for regulatory frameworks or the role of the state seems less relevant. During these phases it seems self-evident to argue in favour of the efficiency gains of international financial liberalisation. In boom times, the supervisory role of regulators is perceived as a stumbling block to global prosperity. However, when things turn sour, does the existence of such regulatory frameworks then prove its worth. And, if so, will the best response for Europe’s economies be national or pan-European?

In this evening debate, Marc De Vos, professor at Ghent University and founder of the Itinera Institute, a Brussels-based policy institute, will examine the long-term consequences of the financial and economic crisis, as well as presenting the findings of his new book: After the Meltdown: The Future of Capitalism and Globalization in the Age of the Twin Crises (shoehornbooks.com). He will pay particular attention to the roles of the US, the EU, and China and offer some stark messages for European policymakers. Brian Carney, editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe, will chair the event.

The Stockholm Network hosted an online webinar that explored the problem that substandard drugs present to public health.

The webinar featured presentations from an expert panel and included a live question and answer session.

Participants will include:

• Peter Pitts, President of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest;
  

• Gustavo de Freitas Morais, Partner of Danneman Siemsen and Professor of Law at Getúlio Vargas Foundation;
  

• Dr Alphonse Crespo, Executive Director and Founder of Medicine and Liberty;
  

• Dr Meir Pugatch, Director of Research of the Stockholm Network and Senior Lecturer at the University of Haifa;
  

• Dr David Torstensson, Senior Researcher of the Stockholm Network.
  

Today we use more medicines than ever before. The total worldwide market for pharmaceuticals is estimated at over $770 billion and this number is set to increase. Yet, while much focus has been placed on how to pay for the growth in demand for medicines, little attention has been paid to what may amount to an equally serious problem: ensuring their safety for patients.

Complex and interlinked supply chains now mean that the process of testing, manufacturing and marketing a new medicine spreads across different countries (for example from India to the US or the EU and vice versa). However, the globalisation of pharmaceutical markets and production has also increased the spread and prevalence of unsafe medicines, be they counterfeit or substandard. Counterfeit medicines are defined by the WHO as being "deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to identity and/or source". Substandard pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, are those which have been legitimately manufactured and, more often than not, approved for market and sale by a national or regional Drug Regulatory Authority (DRA) but which nevertheless do not meet the required quality or safety requirements.

The Stockholm Network has previously highlighted the serious effects of counterfeit medicines. We now aim to demonstrate how substandard drugs are a real and growing threat to public health in both the developed and developing world. As substandard drugs have often been approved by a regulator, we need to examine where existing drug regulations have gone wrong and how they can be changed. In this public workshop our expert panel will highlight the problem that substandard drugs present to public health and the Stockholm Network will present the findings of our new report into the issue.

Fundación FAES (Spain) hosted an event in collaboration with the Stockholm Network and the Henry Jackson Society to launch a new report called Europe, Proposals for Freedom.

Europe, Proposals for Freedom analyses the major challenges that Europe is facing and proposes a series of measures the Union can adopt to address them. European integration after World War II was a success. The desired goals were fully achieved: peace and reconciliation for the European nations; security to ward off the threat of a totalitarian and expansionist model; cooperation based on freedom to reach goals shared by democratic nations and a common ambition for prosperity based on a free market economy.

Today, the goals might seem different, but they are not. We are at peace, but peace is not guaranteed. We need to avoid temptations such as diluting the Nation States into a superstructure lacking legitimacy or creating state-like entities which would only revive old conflicts. Overcoming the economic crisis requires openness, competition and integration so that European economies are more dynamic and create employment and wealth.

Speakers at the event were:

• Jose Maria Aznar, former president of the Spanish Government and president of Fundación FAES;


• Lord David Trimble, Nobel Prize laureate and former first minister of Northern Ireland;


• Alberto Carnero, director of the International Area of FAES Foundation and author of the report.

The directors of the Stockholm Network and the Henry Jackson Society, Helen Disney and Alan Mendoza, opened and chaired the event.

Competitive Malta has recently joined the Stockholm Network. Helen Disney, chief executive and founder of the network, addressed the business breakfast organised by Competitive Malta in conjunction with the Malta Business Weekly.

Download "Stockholm Network think-tank CEO to address business leaders" in Malta Business Weekly

Download "Competitive Malta joins the Stockholm Network" in Malta Business Weekly

Nations across Europe and around the world all agree that healthcare technology assessment (HTA) is an important mechanism in the process of deciding which medicines should be paid for through public funding. But there is no consensus as to the appropriate tools for 21st century, patient-centric HTA.

Please join the Center for Medicine for in the Public Interest, the Stockholm Network and Timbro for a timely and lively debate on this important issue.

Speakers at the event were:

• Tobias Nilsson, political adviser to the Swedish Minister of Social affairs;
  
• Peter Pitts, Center for Medicine in the Public Interest;
  
• Richard Bergström, LIF;
  
• Dr Meir Pugatch, Stockholm Network and University of Haifa.

The Stockholm Network and the Joze Pucnik Institute joined forces to organise a workshop on “The Future of Healthcare Reform in Slovenia”.

The event took place in Ljubljana on 25th November and was attended by around 35 people from the media, the health policy institute, the HTA body, government officials, insurers, medical schools and industry.

Natasa Sustar, Director of the Joze Pucnik Institute, presented the event and was followed by Helen Disney, CEO of the Stockholm Network, who introduced the CEE Ahead Programme. Both presentations were followed by a speech by the President of the Institute and MEP, Mijael Brejc, who spoke about Healthcare in the Slovenian and the European context and, finally, by Dr Meir Pugatch, Director of Research of the Stockholm Network, who gave his talk on “The Future of Healthcare Reform in Slovenia”. The presentations generated a lot of engagement from the audience during the Q&A session.

Background

Over the last 20 years Slovenia has undergone major economic and structural reforms, turning it into one of the most advanced systems in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region.

A number of interesting policy innovations have already attracted the attention of external observers, including the unique combination of mandatory universal insurance and voluntary complementary insurance that has been adopted. Slovenian citizens now enjoy significant freedom of choice as far as their health insurance is concerned.

On other fronts, there is still more that can be done. Patients can find it difficult to attain swift access to innovative healthcare technologies despite a rapid growth in R&D expenditure and it is still not easy to find user-friendly healthcare information.

Indeed there are still plenty of issues to debate. How can Slovenia make sure it builds on the policy reforms it has adopted? What can other CEE countries learn from the Slovenian experience with healthcare reform, and should they follow the path of introducing a system which combines mandatory and voluntary insurances? Which other reforms could be introduced in Slovenia as well as in the CEE region as a whole, in order to improve the quality of healthcare? And, how can these policies be linked to strategic objectives at the pan-European level, such as the Lisbon Agenda goals, in which Slovenia recently played a key role, as part of its EU Presidency?

In Slovenian

Stockholm Network in Inštitut dr. Jožeta Pučnika sta združila moči pri obravnavi teh vprašanj in priredila delavnico Prihodnost zdravstvenih reform v Sloveniji.

Okrogla miza je potekala 25. novembra 2008 v Ljubljani. Razprave se je udeležilo 45 ljudi s področja medijev, vladnih služb, zavarovalništva, zdravstvenih inštitutov, šol in gospodarstva.

Direktorica Inštituta dr. Jožeta Pučnika, Nataša Šuštar, je predstavila dogodek in delovanje Inštituta, Helen Disney, direktorica Stockholm Network, pa je predstavila program CEE Ahead. Sledil je govor predsednika sveta Inštituta dr. Jožeta Pučnika, poslanca v Evropskem parlamentu, dr. Mihaela Brejca, ki je povedal nekaj besed o zdravstvu v slovenskem in evropskem kontekstu. Kot zadnji je svoj prispevek predstavil dr. Meir Pugatch, direktor Stockholm Network, ki govoril o »Prihodnosti zdravstvenih reform v Sloveniji«. Njegov prispevek je spodbudil precej odziva publike v zaključni razpravi.

Ozadje

V Sloveniji so bile v zadnjih 20 letih izvedene velike gospodarske in strukturne reforme, ki so jo spremenile v enega najnaprednejših sistemov v srednje- in vzhodnoevropski regiji.

Številne zanimive novosti so že pritegnile pozornost zunanjih opazovalcev, med drugim tudi edinstvena kombinacija splošnega obveznega in prostovoljnega dodatnega zavarovanja. Slovenski državljani danes uživajo precejšnjo svobodo izbire zdravstvenega zavarovanja.

Po drugi strani pa je mogoče storiti še več. Pacienti kljub nagli rasti porabe za raziskave in razvoj včasih nimajo hitrega dostopa do inovativnih zdravstvenih tehnologij. Prav tako ni enostavno najti uporabnikom prijaznih informacij o zdravstvenem sistemu.

Pravzaprav je še veliko vprašanj, o katerih bi bilo potrebno razpravljati. Kako lahko Slovenija nadgradi reforme, ki jih je sprejela? Česa se lahko iz slovenske izkušnje z reformo zdravstvenega sistema naučijo druge države srednje in vzhodne Evrope in ali naj ji sledijo z uvajanjem sistema kombinacije obveznega in prostovoljnega zavarovanja? Katere druge reforme bi lahko izpeljali v Sloveniji in v celotni srednje- in vzhodnoevropski regiji, da bi izboljšali kakovost zdravstva? In kako je mogoče takšno politiko povezati s strateškimi cilji na evropski ravni, kakršni so cilji programa lizbonske strategije, pri katerem je Slovenija v času svojega predsedovanja Evropski uniji igrala ključno vlogo?

Download Dr Meir Pugatch`s Presentation

John Major`s underpants. Brown as Stalin. Obama as Osama. These images, as much as anything, show how a politician`s career can be made, or broken, on the back of public perception. With the US elections almost upon us, there is an unprecedented opportunity for the art of satire to shape public opinion.

Kevin `KAL` Kallaugher (celebrating 30 years as The Economist`s political cartoonist) and Henry Naylor (creator of TV`s `Headcases` and `Spitting Image` head writer) discussed cartooning, campaigning and chicanery and explored how art can be used to interest, excite and intrigue any audience.

This was followed by a hands-on, interactive cartooning conducted by KAL, where members of the audience saw first hand the process of political cartooning.

The discussion was chaired by Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Channel 4 News.

• Campaign cartooning video
  

• Setting the stage: Evidence-based policy in IPRs – can policy meet practice? – Dr Meir P. Pugatch, Senior Lecturer, University of Haifa, and Director of Research, Stockholm Network

• Recent lessons from the statistical analysis of IPRs on innovation and economic growth at the macro and micro economic levels – Dr Dominique Guellec, Principal Administrator, Economic Analysis and Statistics Division, Directorate of Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI), OECD

• Globalisation, intellectual property and value creation - new frontiers for research – Douglas Lippoldt, Head of Division (acting), Development Division, Trade and Agriculture Directorate, OECD

• Using IPRs for voluntary, market-driven collaborations in the biotechnology field – theory and practice – Dr Christina Sampogna, Administrator, Biotechnology Division, DSTI, OECD

Moderator: Dr Iain Gillespie, Head, Biotechnology Division, OECD

Speakers include at the event were:

• Mario Cervantes, principal administrator of Innovation and Technology Policy at the OECD;


• Denis Dambois, administrator of the Public Procurement and Intellectual Property Unit at DG Trade of the European Commission;


• Dr Yoav Shechter, external affairs director of MSD Israel;