Freeman Centenary/Research Policy 50th Anniversary Conference

Chris Freeman Centenary & Research Policy 50th Anniversary Conference

Date: Friday 10 September 2021 

Time: 9am – 6pm BST

Venue: Hybrid (both physical and online attendance will be available)

To mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Chris Freeman, and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Research Policy, the journal that he co-founded, SPRU is organising a one-day conference. It will include presentations by the authors of papers to be published in a forthcoming Special Issue of Research Policy devoted to Professor Freeman and his enduring significance for the field of innovation studies, along with a number of early career researchers, reflecting the fact that Freeman always gave great attention to encouraging younger researchers. The conference will be 'hybrid' in format, with some attending physically at the ßÏßÏÊÓƵ, and others participating virtually via Zoom.

Key audience: All those interested in innovation studies and science and technology policy.

Registration and attendance: Participation to this event is free but registration is essential. The deadline to register to attend the event physically is the 1st September. Please register to attend using the form at the bottom of this page.

Draft Agenda

Time Speaker / Title
8:45 - 9:00

In-person registration opens and online admissions begins

9:00 - 9:30

Welcome and introductions

Chair - Ben Martin

Contributors - Steve McGuire, Jeremy Kent Hall & Carlota Perez

9:30 - 11:00 

First session - presentations by Early Career Researchers (from Asia & Africa/Europe)

Chair - Alex Coad

Presenters - 

  • Sira Maliphol (SUNY, Korea): Identifying Interdisciplinary Emergence in the Science of Science: Combination of Network Analysis and Topic Modeling Method Using the LDA Mallet Model
  • Donggyu Kim (KAIST, Korea): The Stocks of Radical and Incremental Inventions and Firm R&D Productivity
  • Frank van der Wouden (UHK, Hong Kong): Impact of geographical distance on acquiring know-how through collaboration
  • Ketan Reddy (IIT Madras, India): Innovative Efforts and Export Market Survival: Evidence from an Emerging Economy
  • Alex Everhart (Harvard, USA): Financial Shocks and Innovation in the Medical Device Industry

  • Jarrod Humphrey (Univ. Florida, USA): Pre-entry knowledge contexts and post-entry firm innovation

11:00 - 11:30 Coffee break
11.30 - 13:00

Second session - presentations by authors of Freeman Special Issue papers

Chair - Raphie Kaplinsky

Presenters -

  • Robin Mansell (LSE, UK): ‘Adjusting to the Digital: Societal Outcomes and Consequences’
  • Bengt Åke Lundvall (Aalborg University, Denmark) – ‘China’s catching-up in Artificial Intelligence seen as a co-evolution of Corporate and National Innovation Systems’
  • Mary Kaldor (LSE, UK) – ‘War and Transition’
  • Giovanni Dosi (Sant'Anna School of Advances Studies, Italy) and Luc Soete (UNU-Merit, The Netherlands) – ‘On the syndemic nature of crises: a Freeman perspective’
13:00 - 14:00 Lunch
13:50 - 13:55

Showing of short video of Chris Freeman with introduction by Alan Freeman

14.00 - 15:30

Third session - presentations by Early Career Researchers (from N & S America & Africa/Europe)

Chair - Paola Criscuolo

Presenters - 

  • Sukhun Kang (London Business School, UK): Objects may be closer than they appear: A role of a scientific map in organizational search
  • Keungoui Kim (UC Dublin, Ireland): The Evolution of the Science Space in European Regions: Relatedness and Trajectories of Scientific Knowledge Production
  • Hooman Abootorabi (Syracuse, USA): Intellectual Property Rights & New Venture Performance: Empirical Evidence from a Natural Experiment
  • Sam (Ruiqing) Cao (Harvard, USA): Growth, Transformation and Digital Capital: The importance of technological and organizational architecture
  • Raphael Martins (NYU Stern, New York, USA): Consequences of Lab Closures: Understanding Worker Mobility, Technological Trajectory and Productivity in the Pharma Industry
  • Misha Teplitskiy (Univ. Michigan, USA): Journal peer review shows no evidence of anti-novelty bias
15:30 - 16:00 Coffee break
16:00 - 17:30

Fourth session - remaining presentations by authors of Freeman Special Issue papers

Chair - Ed Steinmueller

Presenters - 

  • Francisco Louca (LSEG, Portrugal) – ‘Chris Freeman's concept of evolution - A critique of the misuse of biological analogies in macroeconomics’
  • Anna Valero (CEP-LSE, UK) – ‘Innovation, Growth and the Transition to Net-Zero Emissions’
  • Erika Kraemer-Mbula (UJ, South Africa) and Raphie Kaplinsky (Univ. ßÏßÏÊÓƵ & IDS, UK) – ‘Innovation and Uneven Development: The Challenge for Low- and Middle-Income Economies’
  • Slavo Radosevic (UCL, UK) – ‘Techno-Economic Transformation in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union – A Neo-Schumpeterian Perspective’
17:30 - 17:45

Building on Chris Freeman’s legacy

Chair - Maria Savona

Contributors - Simon Jones & Jeremy Kent Hall

17:45 - 18:00

Closing Remarks

Ben Martin

Conference Chairs

Alex Coad, Professor, Waseda Business School

Jeremy Kent Hall, Professor of Innovation Studies, Director of Science Policy Research Unit, ßÏßÏÊÓƵ

Raphie KaplinskyHonorary Professor, Science Policy Research Unit, ßÏßÏÊÓƵ and Emeritus Professor, Institute of Development Studies and The Open University

Ben Martin, Professor of Science and Technology Policy Studies, Science Policy Research Unit, ßÏßÏÊÓƵ

Maria Savona, Professor of Economics of Innovation, Science Policy Research Unit, ßÏßÏÊÓƵ and Professor of Applied Economics at Luiss Guido Carli University

Ed SteinmuellerProfessor of Information & Communication Technology Policy, Science Policy Research Unit, ßÏßÏÊÓƵ

Speaker biographies and abstracts

  • Alex Coad

    Alex Coad is a Professor at Waseda Business School (Tokyo, Japan), and is interested in the areas of firm-level R&D investment, firm performance, entrepreneurship, and innovation policy. Alex has published over 80 articles in international peer-reviewed journals, such as Journal of Business Venturing, Research Policy, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Economica, Industrial and Corporate Change, and European Economic Review. According to google-scholar, Alex has over 10'000 citations and an H-index of 45. Alex is an Editor at the journals 'Research Policy' (Financial Times Top 50 list of journals for Business Schools) and 'Small Business Economics'. Previously Alex obtained a PhD from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Sant'Anna School, Pisa, Italy, and held academic positions at the Max Planck Institute (Jena, DE), Aalborg University (Denmark), SPRU (Univ. ßÏßÏÊÓƵ, UK), and CENTRUM Graduate Business School (Lima, Peru), and also being an Economic Analyst at the European Commission (IRI group, JRC-IPTS, Sevilla). In December 2016, Alex received the 2016 Nelson Prize at University of California Berkeley.

  • Paola Criscuolo

    Paola Criscuolo is a professor of innovation management at Imperial College Business School, London, UK. Her research interests include R&D project selection, open innovation, and knowledge transfer both within and across firms. She received her Ph.D. in the economics of innovation and technological change from Maastricht University. She is an Associate Editor of Research Policy since January 2020 and she a member of both the editorial board of Academy of Management Journal and of the advisory board of Industry and Innovation since 2016. 

  • Jeremy Hall

    Jeremy Hall (DPhil, SPRU, 2000) is Professor of Innovation Studies, Director of SPRU, ßÏßÏÊÓƵ Business School, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, published by Elsevier.  His research investigates the social impacts and unanticipated outcomes of innovation and entrepreneurship, sustainable supply chains and social inclusion, where he has collaborated with a range of natural and social scientists with funding from numerus funding agencies.

  • Raphie Kaplinsky

    Raphie Kaplinsky is an Honorary Professor at SPRU. He is also an Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Developments Studies and at the Open University. He has recently published a book on sustainability challenges seen through the lens of techno-economic paradigms (Sustainable Futures – An Agenda for Action; Polity Press) which builds on the pathbreaking contributions of Chris Freeman to the understanding of systems transition. Raphie began his career at SPRU in the early 1970s and, with Charles Cooper, worked actively to promote a joint research agenda between SPRU and the IDS. For many years he was, like many others, mentored by Chris. One of his most memorable experiences was to take Chris on a guided tour of the slums in Cape Town South Africa before the Transition to democratic government in 1994.

  • Ben Martin

    Ben Martin is Professor of Science and Technology Policy Studies at SPRU, where he served as Director from 1997 to 2004. He is also an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP), and a Research Associate at the Centre for Business Research, Judge Business School, both at the University of Cambridge. He has carried out research for 40 years in the field of science policy. He helped to establish techniques for evaluating scientific laboratories, research programmes and national scientific performance. He also pioneered the notion of ‘technology foresight’. More recently, he has carried out research on the benefits from government funding of basic research, the changing nature and role of the university, the impact of the Research Assessment Exercise, and the evolution of the field of science policy and innovation studies. He has also published several papers on research misconduct. Since 2004, he has been Editor of Research Policy, and he is also the 1997 winner of the de Solla Price Medal for Science Studies.

  • Maria Savona

    Maria Savona is Professor of Economics of innovation at SPRU, Science Policy Research Unit at the ßÏßÏÊÓƵ, UK and Professor of Applied Economics at the Department of Economics at LUISS University, Rome. She was previously at the University of Cambridge, UK, Universities of Strasbourg and Lille 1, France. Her research focuses on the effects of technical change and innovation on employment and wage inequality; innovation and industrial policy; barriers to innovation; the structural change of the sectoral composition of economies, particularly the emergence of global value chains in services. More recently, she works on the governance of data and policies to redistribute data-value. She has led and co-led several grants funded by the EC, ESRC, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Greater London Authority, IDRC. She has advised the IADB; ECLAC; UN ESCAP; OECD; NESTA; BEIS, DETI. She is an Editor for Research Policy, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Economia Politica, and a former member of the .

  • Ed Steinmueller

    Professor Steinmueller is Professor of Information and Communication Technology Policy at SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit – ßÏßÏÊÓƵ Business School. He has been Professorial fellow at SPRU since 1997. He began his studies in the areas of computer science, mathematics, economics, and Chinese language and history at the University of Oregon and Stanford University. Steinmueller has published widely in the field of the industrial economics of information and communication technology industries including integrated circuits, computers, telecommunications, software and the economic, social policy issues of the Information Society. He has also contributed to research in science policy and the economics of basic research. Professor Steinmueller has been an advisor to several Directorates at the European Commission, the National Academies of Science and Engineering (US), and the Department of Trade and Industry and Office of Telecommunications (UK).