Knowledge Based Development.

Defining Knowledge-based development

  • The dominant view of KBD stems from the intention to leverage aggregate production though k-intensive factors (science and technology, education, and innovation).
  • A corollary of that view is that a KBD policy aims at improving global competitiveness of a given collective (city, region, and nation) through the attraction, retention, multiplication and capitalisation of k-intensive resources.
  • Productivity, though, may be expanded to account for all results of human activity contributing to overall future social worth.
  • The reach of the KBD concept has been constrained by received views on what ‘k-based’ denotes. Amongst received views, two are prominent:
  • a) Instrumental view: economic growth can be promoted through adequate access to k- intensive resources (science and technology, human capital, digital connectivity, and green economy).
    b) Incremental view: attainment of ‘lower’ stages of social progress will eventually lead to ‘higher’ stages: an information and technology-intensive environment will breed a knowledge society.
  • Since concepts and theories to address the issues involved in the two former views pre- existed KBD, unless this latter concept proves distinct and meaningful, it could be rendered obsolete and subsume within mainstream areas such as technological progress, regional innovation, urban development, sustainability and so forth.
  • The current attempt to assign a distinct meaning to KBD is identified as disruptive, radical or holistic, insofar, it requires dealing with all relevant value dimensions for a given community. Also, once knowledge is entered as the main element in social value dynamics, new functional realities emerge that radically transform the space of possibilities.
  • The notion of KBD undertaken here aims at a dynamic identification, measurement and balance among major value elements shared by a community.
  • The knowledge-based attribute refers to an economic, political and cultural order, placing as much emphasis on the intangible value or intellectual assets as it has so far done on the material and monetary ones.
  • Two developments contribute to substantiate the viability of the disruptive view of KBD:
  • a) Capital systems as a universal language to capture all relevant value dimensions in a community within a nested taxonomy.
    b) Knowledge markets as a new breed of value exchanges where the quantity, quality and terms of interactions amongst agents are all determined primordially by the dynamic properties of IC.

    Drawing on these proposals and advancements, KBD can be defined as: the collective identification and enhancement of the value set whose dynamic balance furthers the viability and transcendence of a given community.


    From: Carrillo, F. J. (2014). What ‘knowledge-based’stands for? A position paper. International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development, 5(4), 402-421.