An initiative of the Chilean Ministry of Sciences looks to solve problems by organizing sources and offering data, information and analysis on a website that is easily accessible for the citizen.
Accessing the information generated by a country like Chile on the behaviour of the various entities that participate in processes related to scientific research, the development of innovative processes, the participation of academic and productive entities in technological development is now easier thanks to the development of an initiative called Observa.
Observa, specifically the Observatory of the Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation System (CTCI), formed as an institutional initiative of the Ministry of Science, promoted and coordinated by the Office of Studies and Statistics via a collaboration in which other entities such as ANID, Corfo, FIA, INE, Inapi and SIES, provide their data and information.
How Observa operates
The work of Observa is to promote the use of evidence to address and solve public problems and its objective is to collect, standardize, analyze and disclose in a safe, responsible, fluid and friendly way, all the information that concerns the National System of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation (CTCI) of Chile, to support evidence-based public policy decision-making and to inform citizens and relevant stakeholders of the system.
This initiative becomes an important model for making CTCI-related data available to the population to improve its use and application, and it becomes a beacon for other nations in the region that are looking for an example to follow in terms of integration and efficiency of use for data and information.
To achieve this, Observa has a website, through which data, information and analysis are reliably accessed on the National System of CTCI from which it is possible to inform the actors of the academy, the public sector, private, civil society and citizens.
“The function of this platform is to expose the capacities and production that Chile has in science, technology, knowledge and innovation in a single place, solving the problem of fragmentation and bringing the data closer to citizens and decision-makers. It is also a contribution to transparency in the management of the state, of a more modern, friendlier state that adopts state-of-the-art technologies,” said the Minister of Science, Andrés Couve, who pointed out that he hopes that this platform will be a reference in the provision of information.
“We have enthusiastically promoted a set of initiatives in a Public Interest Data Agenda such as the COVID-19 Database, the Data Observatory, the Climate Change Observatory, the National AI Policy, ‘The Chile We Want’, the proposal of an Integrated Water Information System for the new Undersecretariat of Water, the ANID’s Open Data Policy and the work of a Public Interest Data Governance Commission convened by the ministry.”
Projection of Observa
What does it mean to have a portal with scientific and technological data, with the protagonists in research and innovation processes? Beyond the OECD directives that seek to improve the observatories of this type of information by its partner countries, it also leads to a more efficient way of finding inflexion points and common elements for public and private entities with academia to achieve significant advances in their fields of knowledge.
The integration of interlocutors from the government with international organizations that find peers in research centers and universities, with civil society, including scientific guilds, research networks and mechanisms for scientific and technological dissemination, becomes an opportunity to validate, publicize and confront the advances in various branches of science at critical moments such as the current ones, with impact both on the economy, productivity and the quality of life of Chileans.
An example of this capacity is reported from the Observation Future Team, which leads the implementation of activities of high strategic value such as the following:
Data Observatory, DO, a non-profit public-private organization designed to maximize the benefit of public, unique and global value data generated in Chile.
Observatory of Climate Change, OCC, to analyze the impact of global climate change in the southern area and Antarctica of the planet.
Chilean IT and Big Science: an observatory to analyze the points necessary to close the technology gap and assign priorities and investments that leverage the entire CTCI scheme.
Last but not least, Chile has adhered to a base document for Artificial Intelligence policies since 2019. The work of the Future Observation Team is to advance in the compilation of information and the analysis of action plans on this front, which will impact Chilean society in general, which include from the technical part to ethical and security issues.
