The Asian health policy program is pleased to announce that a conference on "Provider Payment Incentives in the Asia Pacific" will be held November 7-8, 2008, at the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University in Beijing, P.R. China.

Organizers of the conference include health economists at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University; the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University; Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management Department of Economics; and Seoul National University School of Public Health.

We welcome empirical and theoretical research analyzing how reimbursement incentives shape health and healthcare behavior in the economies of the Asia Pacific. We especially welcome evaluations of policy reforms and natural experiments impacting health service provider incentives. The papers can examine payment incentives in one country, region, or healthcare setting, or include comparative analysis of two or more regions in the Asia Pacific.

Please email papers or extended abstracts (about 500 words) to Karen Eggleston. The submissions deadline is June 1, 2008. The selection committee will notify authors by July 1, 2008.

We also encourage inquiries from researchers that may have access to relevant payment reform data but are interested in support regarding their research design or analytic methods. We will work with you to identify appropriate collaborators and possible financial support for completing the research.

Authors of papers selected for presentation will receive partial subsidy for their participation in the conference as well as opportunity to publish their research in a special volume through the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University or in a special issue of an English-language health policy journal.

"The Shape of Things to Come," a conference presented by the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship on January 17-18, 2008, featured keynotes by John Hagel, co-author of The Only Sustainable Edge and Co-Chairman of the Deloitte Center for Edge Innovation, and Dr. Henry Chesbrough, Executive Director of the Center for Open Innovation at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and author of Open Innovation.

The keynotes bookended Thursday's forum, "New Patterns and Paradigms in Global Innovation Networks," and were a prelude to Friday's academic workshop, "A Global Perspective on Regional Innovation Indicators." Hagel's talk focused on the need for a more explicit taxonomy of innovative collaboration and discussed the "huge need to define pragmatic migration paths"--routes that the average manager and company can take to reach the opportunities that normally are only accessible to cutting-edge companies.

The forum closed with a presentation by Dr. Henry Chesbrough, who provided an overview on the globalization of innovation in the Chinese semiconductor industry, which he sees as split into a "globally oriented, globally competitive" industry segment and a domestically-oriented segment with "backward technologies" and lacking access to capital. The question, he explained, is how China will shift its resources, now entrenched in the latter, to the former, competitive segment.

Chesbrough finished with a discussion of intellectual property rights (IPR) in China, looking at flows of knowledge and current IPR challenges; he mentioned some surprising developments--the rise of businesses to "promote the legal exchange of IP" and the growth of a domestic constituency for stronger IPR--and discussed future implications for IPR in China.

In between the keynotes, the forum featured sessions on innovation in internet services in China, the role of venture capital as a network builder, and discussions on two rapidly moving industries: cleantech and thin film transistor LCD displays.

Conference materials, including presentations and audio files, will be made available on the SPRIE website.

Shorenstein APARC has received a grant from the Academy of Korean Studies in Seoul which enables the center to publish a series of books on Korea's democratization and social change, under the series title: Korean Democracy: From Birth to Maturity.

Under this three-year grant, the center will publish a series of studies which focus on: 1) the role of social movements in Korean democratization, 2) comparative relevance of the Korean experiences, and 3) impact of democratization on social and political changes.

For the first study the center will build upon its on-going research projects, particularly the Stanford Korean Democracy Project. This project seeks to understand the emergence and evolution of social movements and their role in Korean democratization. During the authoritarian years, when former military generals ruled Korea, various social groups participated in the movement to restore democracy and ensure human rights. Their activism was instrumental to democratic reforms that took place in the summer of 1987 and they continued to play an important role even after democratic transition.

The Stanford University Korea Democracy Project traces the dynamic of this social movement from 1970 to 1993. Based on sourcebooks obtained from the Korea Democracy Foundation, project researchers led by Dr. Gi-Wook Shin have created novel quantitative data sets. Specifically, they have coded the main features of nearly five thousand protest and repression events from 1970 to 1993, using a comprehensive coding scheme developed expressly for this purpose. In addition, researchers have coded an organizational directory that includes characteristics associated with 387 social movement organizations active during this same period. While there are many informative studies of particular movements - such as the Kwangju uprising - in Korea's democracy movement, the Stanford Korea Democracy Project aims to provide a systematic overview of the movement as it developed through the most authoritarian period (1972-84), democratic transition (1987), and the democratic period (post-1987). Two books are expected from this project.

The second study will address the comparative relevance of Korean experiences. The comparison between Korea and other non-Western societies raises many questions about the conditions necessary for democratic transformation, including the role of culture, national identity, social organization, labor politics, and economic modernization. There is also a need to understand how Korea's particular example provides lessons regarding effective democracy promotion. The center plans to host a conference on labor politics in Korean democracy that is designed to develop a theoretical challenge to the Euro-centric theoretical paradigm in labor studies and draw implications for other non-Western societies. In advancing comparative perspectives, the researchers will work closely with Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). The coordinator of their Democracy Program, Larry Diamond, has already published two books that looked at Korea's experience in this comparative framework.

Finally, the third study will assess the impact of democratization on broader social and political changes in South Korea. This will include not only domestic issues but also Korea's relations with other nations. The latter is particularly relevant since Korean democratization took place in the post-cold war era. As such, democratization has provoked Koreans to rethink their views of the North, US-ROK relations and Korea's role in the world. Clearly democratic change has significantly altered the environment in which Korean government policy is made, broadening the public policy dialogue to include non-governmental actors, new media, and politicians who are sensitive to the shifts of public opinion. Researchers at the center will explore this dynamic in supporting the research and publication of a new book on South Korea's democratization and the anti-American wave of 1999-2002, authored by a former senior American official, David Straub, currently a 2007-2008 Pantech Research Fellow at the Center. 

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Center, a research center within the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), seeks a full time researcher to assist the director of the Korean Studies Program (KSP) with scholarly work related to the program. The incumbent will manage KSP's projects that concern Korea and the East Asia region.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, conducting research related to the program and the director's own research. The incumbent will provide program support to the director in developing new research projects; preparing grant proposals and reports; and assisting the director in preparing for research meetings and conferences. The incumbent may be called upon to accompany the director or to represent program at related research meetings.

QUALIFICATIONS: The incumbent must have BA (or equivalent) in international relations or political science (or related subject) with two to three years of work experience with strong writing and editing skills. A graduate degree in social sciences is desirable, but not required. Must have knowledge of international relations in North East Asia, specifically of Korean affairs and of the policy making process in Washington D.C. The incumbent will work in a fast-paced and dynamic intellectual environment.

Applicants must submit a cover letter and CV.

Two year fixed-term appointment with possibility of renewal.

To ensure your application information is captured in our official files and that the hiring department has immediate access to your resume, you must apply to Jobs at Stanford
requisition # 28868 (keyword search: 28868).

Stanford University is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer.