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2.1 Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC)
APEC was formed in 1989 in response to the growing interdependence among Asia-Pacific economies. APEC’s 18 current member economies account for about half the world’s total annual output. Under APEC, the Industrial Science and Technology Working Group (IST-WG), was set up in 1990 to work on the priority areas such as: improved flow of information and technology; improved researcher exchange; and facilitation of joint research projects. The following eighteen APEC economies are included for this study: Australia; Brunei; Canada; Chile; China; Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Japan; Korea; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Papua New Guinea; Philippines; Singapore; Chinese Taipei; Thailand; and the USA.
As the first step of the project, Japan circulated survey form-1 to member authorities during November 1997 in order to compile researchers’ flow-matrix among APEC economies. The report of the study was presented at the 14th IST-WG meeting at Taipei in March 98.
2.3 Current Survey -2 - Questionnaire for Individual Researchers
As a follow up, Survey -2 has been proposed and accepted at the 14th IST-WG meeting at Taipei in March 98. The objective of the survey is to improve and promote the exchange of researchers among APEC economies. Individual researchers' feed back and input will be required and very valuable for this project. Hence, this part of the survey was to be filled in by individual researcher from each of the APEC economies.
Japan distributed survey-2 form to member authorities, through Singapore JETRO office during May 98. The member authorities in turn distributed the form to individual researchers through R&D organization in their economies. After completing the survey-2 forms, they were returned to Singapore office for compilation, analysis and reporting. The survey form was also available electronically at website. A large percentage of participants have used Internet-WEB to complete the questionnaire. The Survey-2 project details and survey results are presented in this report.
The researchers and authorities of APEC economies have helped us to design and provide feed back on the survey-2 form. The survey-2 form was also discussed at the 13th and 14th APEC IST workgroup meeting and changes suggested at the side meeting were incorporated. The questionnaire is to be filled in by an individual researcher from any one of APEC economies and
Who has worked on a research assignment in an another APEC economy or
Who faces problems to undertake an research assignment or participate in a research exchange program or
Who has declined an offer of research exchange in an another APEC economy.
From the point of view of confidentiality, the participants were assured that information will be confidential and individual view will not be circulated or published in the form of report. The statistics collected will be used for establishing promotion mechanisms and removing barriers for achieving free exchange of researchers among APEC economies. The participants are free to choose the economy they want to evaluate. They need not provide personal particulars like age and birth place, if they prefer to. There are no questions like name, current employment, citizenship, address and so on.
The survey questionnaires were distributed and collected through the following three mechanism:
Circulation of hard and soft copy of survey form through member authorities in APEC economies;
Circulation of hard and soft copy of survey form through friends and fellow researchers; and
Internet WEB site.
Though there is no minimum sample size, the target was 2000 replies. We have received a total of 2462 replies by 31st August 98. These matters are discussed in detail in the following three sections.
3.2 Circulated Word document
Japan distributed the proposed survey-2 form to member authorities, through Singapore JETRO office during May 98. The survey form was circulated as hard and soft copy of MS-Word document. The member authorities in turn distributed the form to individual researchers through R&D organization in their economies.
Survey forms were also sent to friends, fellow researchers and individual research organization to get good response. Two sample forms (extracted from few replies and mixed up) are given below. They are all illustrations of the replies received by us.
Draft format
During the initial stages, draft survey-2 forms were circulated among the member authorities of APEC economies and selected fellow researchers. Some have used these draft forms to answer the survey. Since there was not much change in the content of the form, their replies were also analysed together with the new form.
The final survey form retained all the factors in the draft form. Some new factors were added. Users are requested to tick or check positive or negative for the factors. In the old draft form, for some of the factors participants were asked to identify factors as issues.
So, in this report, when results are presented, draft survey results are presented under Issues category.
Sample draft survey form (extracted from few replies and mixed up) is given below.
Interviews were also conducted during the course of designing and developing the survey-2 questionnaire. Through interviews, in addition to replies for our questionnaire, lot of information could be collected on researchers' mobility problm. The collected data through interviews were entered electronically through electronic survey form. This in a way helped us to develop a good electronic survey system. Interviews also helped us to develop the final version of survey form.
3.7 Electronic Survey
Electronic Survey Form
A HTML version of the survey questionnaire is uploaded on the project server. Emails were sent to member authorities of APEC economies, heads of international research organizations, fellow researchers and friends to complete the form electronically. The main features are:
The user has to click at the survey icon to open the questionnaire. He has to select the options available under each question and click. There are spaces to add remarks.
When he/she has completed the questionnaire, he has to click at submit icon and mail it electronically.
The conversion reads the reply and converts the data for analysis.