Andrew W. Wyckoff

Andrew Wyckoff is a nonresident senior fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings. He is the former director for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). During his tenure of more than decade as director, STI expanded substantially, adding new expertise on digital policy (especially data governance and AI), technology governance, productivity analysis based on microdata, consumer policy and product safety, globalization, and sectoral issues like steel overcapacity and decarbonization. He oversaw the development of new working parties dedicated to data governance, artificial intelligence, bio- nano- and converging technologies; new global forums on productivity, digital security and technology governance and hosted entities such as the Global Partnership for AI and the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity.

Starting with Innovation Strategy (2007-2010), he and his team used OECD’s breadth to launch and lead a series of cross-department, multidisciplinary activities across OECD. Following innovation, this work led to a project on knowledge-based capital (intangibles like R&D, data and intellectual property), global value chains and their measurement (trade in value-added (ICIO/TiVA)) to work on the next production revolution, data-driven innovation and, most recently, “Going Digital.” The Going Digital project takes a whole-of-government perspective on the digital transformation with the objective of aiding policy makers to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks of the transformation. It is notable for having four successive, 2-year phases, that moved from an initial broad assessment to more focused projects on AI and data governance and produced a number of OECD Council Recommendations and Declarations such as OECD’s AI Principles (2019), the Protection of Children in the Digital Environment (2012, 2021), a recommendation on Broadband Connectivity (2021) and the Declaration on Government Access to Personal Data Held by Private Sector Entities (2022). Several of these recommendations have subsequently become the basis of G7 and G20 agreements.

Prior to being director, he worked as the head of STI’s Digital Economy Policy division as well as head of STI’s Economic Analysis and Statistics Division. Prior to joining the OECD, he had positions at the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) as a program manager of the IT and Commerce program, and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

He is currently a member of the Steering Committee of MIT’s AI Policy Forum, Bruegel’s Excellence Network on the Future of Work and Inclusive Growth, the Norwegian Research Council’s International Advisory Board, and a member of Singapore’s Advisory Council on the Ethical Use of AI and Data. Previously he has served as a commissioner on the Lancet Commission Global Health Futures 2030 and co-chaired the U.S. National Academies’ panel on Developing Science, Technology, and Innovation Indicators for the Future.

He is a 2023 recipient of the Japanese awarded in the name of the Emperor, The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, for promoting digital economy policy.

He is a graduate of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government with a Master of Public Policy and the University of Vermont with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics with honors.