Dirk Pilat, a Dutch national, is Deputy Director of the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation. He supports the Director of STI in overseeing OECD’s work on innovation, business dynamics, science and technology, information and communication technology policy as well as the statistical work associated with each of these areas. He also helps ensure this work contributes to the strategic objectives of the Organisation to support and develop better policies for better lives.
He joined the OECD in February 1994 and has worked on many policy issues since then. He was responsible for the OECD’s Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy from 2006 to January 2009, and for the Committee on Industry, Innovation and Entrepreneurship from February 2009 to December 2012. Before joining the OECD, he was a researcher at the University of Groningen, where he also earned his PhD in Economics, working primarily on productivity and economic growth. He has published widely both before and since joining the OECD.
Dr. Charles Wessner currently teaches Global Innovation Policy at Georgetown University where he acts as a powerful advocate of effective innovation policies. Previously, he served for two decades as a National Academies Scholar where he founded and directed of the National Academy of Sciences’ Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program. He is recognized nationally and internationally for his expertise on innovation policy, including public-private partnerships, entrepreneurship, early-stage financing for new firms, 21st century manufacturing, cybersecurity, and the special needs and benefits of high-technology industry. As an outgrowth of his work with the U.S. government, he advises technology agencies, universities, and government ministries, including the Prime Ministers of countries in Europe and Asia. In addition, he cooperates closely with international organizations and lectures at major universities in the U.S. and abroad. The overarching goal of his work is to develop a better understanding of how we can bring new technologies forward to address global challenges in health, climate, energy, water, infrastructure, and security. Reflecting his commitment to international cooperation, he was recently named an Officer of the Order of Merit by the President of France.
Professor Ben Martin studied physics as an undergraduate at Cambridge and science policy as a postgraduate at Manchester. He has carried out research for 30 years in the field of science policy, serving as the Principal Investigator or Project Leader on over 50 research projects and commissioned studies. These have been mostly concerned with the development of techniques for generating systematic information to aid decision-making in relation to science, engineering and technology.
