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.

Honoring the legacy of their husband and father, William Wrigley, Julie Ann Wrigley '71 and Alison Wrigley Rusack '80, along with Alison's husband, Geoffrey Claflin Rusack, have joined together to endow a new senior fellowship that will span both the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Woods Institute for the Environment.

Julie Wrigley and the Rusacks were motivated to provide permanent funding for an interdisciplinary faculty member as part of Stanford's multidisciplinary, cross-school efforts to conduct cutting-edge research on global environmental policy under the international and environmental initiatives of the university's current campaign, The Stanford Challenge.

On Tuesday, January 15, a celebratory dinner was held at FSI to introduce the inaugural recipient of the fellowship, Rosamond L. Naylor, and the fellowship donors, Julie Ann Wrigley, Alison Wrigley Rusack, and Geoffrey Claflin Rusack. "This is an extraordinary occasion for Stanford," said FSI Director Coit D. Blacker. "A family who cares deeply about the conditions of our global environment has with their gift brought together the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Woods Institute for the Environment, providing permanent support for one of our most stellar, jointly appointed faculty members."

Rosamond (Roz) Naylor has served as the Julie Wrigley Senior Fellow at FSI and as a senior fellow at the Woods Institute. Currently, she is the director of the program on Food Security and the Environment; director of the Goldman Honors Program in Environmental Science, Technology, and Policy; and an associate professor of economics, by courtesy. She also teaches courses on the world food economy and sustainable agriculture for the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Environment and Resources. Her research focuses on the environmental and equity dimensions of intensive food production.

Walter P. Falcon, the Helen Farnsworth Professor of Agricultural Policy, Emeritus, and Buzz Thompson, the Perry L. McCarty Co-Director of the Woods Institute for the Environment, also spoke at the dinner, as did Julie Wrigley and Alison Wrigley Rusack.

In giving her personal thanks to the donors, Naylor said that she was "honored to be the first holder of this position, because it marks a new era at Stanford--one in which interdisciplinary research is valued and multi-institutional collaborations are encouraged... It is an unconventional position, donated by a family of highly innovative individuals."

William Wrigley, to whom this fellowship is a tribute, believed strongly in protecting the environment for future generations. Building on the vision of his father and grandfather, he worked tirelessly at guiding the Santa Catalina Island Conservancy in its mission of restoring, preserving, and sharing that unique and beautiful place. His leadership on Catalina, including the expansion of the Philip K. Wrigley Marine Science Institute, led him to broaden his conservation role through the establishment of the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies. He was also a board member of the Peregrine Fund. An unassuming man, William Wrigley didn't see his efforts as anything extraordinary. That he managed to create a lasting environmental legacy while running the multinational chewing gum manufacturer, the William Wrigley Jr. Co., told the world otherwise. The William Wrigley Senior Fellow will carry on in his honor--to William Wrigley, to his family, and to Stanford University.