The “IN CONVERSATION” series (Chris Freeman Centenary Lecture Series), jointly organised by CRIS-IS.ORG & UNU-MERIT, portray prominent innovation scholars of the day in the form of intellectual-biographical interviews with other senior scholars.

In the 10th event Franco Malerba (Full Professor of Applied Economics. President of ICRIOS, Bocconi University) was interviewed by Richard Nelson (George Blumenthal Professor Emeritus of International and Public Affairs, Business, and Law at Columbia University) on 11 OCTOBER 2022 at 1 pm GMT | 2 pm – London | 9 am – New York | 10 am – Brazil | 2 pm – London | 3 pm – Denmark, France, Italy & South Africa | 4 pm – EAT | 6.30 pm – India | 9 pm China & Malaysia | 10 pm – Tokyo | 11 PM Canberra

The event was moderated by Sunil Mani (Centre for Development Studies)

Panel of discussants: Xiaolan Fu (University of Oxford), Nicholas Vonortas (George Washington University) and Yannis Caloghirou (NTUA)

You can watch the video of the event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppbe-mafms8&ab_channel=CRIS1

Also, you can watch here the Opening Lecture by Richard Nelson (and his introduction by Yannis Caloghirou) in the 15th International Globelics Conference that took place in Athens on 11-13 October 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kr-8N5vuPQ

Structure of the program (2 hours split up as follows)

Brief intro to the program and introducing NELSON (by SUNIL) 5 minutes

i. Introductory remarks by NELSON and FRANCO is introduced (10 minutes) followed by a conversation between them as follows

ii. Formative years and major influences – (10 minutes)

iii. Contributions, Critique and weakness, Current work & future course – (35 minutes): starting from the important contributions of FRANCO, evolving towards a critical evaluation of his work. Then moving on to discussions on what next given the changing circumstances, how the theoretical contributions are relevant in current circumstances etc. It is a platform to convey what they want future generations to take from FRANCO and how they can further develop standing on the strong base that was created.

iv. Comment on Status of Innovation Economics and what next? – (10 minutes)

Some of the possible questions could be the following. However the speakers can shape it the way they want it to be!

• How did you end up doing research on innovation?
• What were your most important contributions to the field?
• To what degree have you engaged in teamwork and collective research?
• How do you see the relationship between economics and innovation studies?
• How do you see the role of innovation policy and innovation politics in development strategies?
• How do you see the future for innovation studies?
• At what level should we study innovation – micro, meso and macro?
• What kind of methods should we use to study innovation and economic development?
• What kind of advice would you like to give to young innovation scholars?
• What role can innovation play in meeting global challenges?

BREAK – 5 MINUTES

v. Discussion (1 hour): For the 1 hour discussion a panel of scholars [Xiaolan Fu, Nicholas Vonortas & Yannis Caloghrou] will ask questions or make comments on FRANCO’s work. After FRANCO’s response to them the forum will be open for questions from the general audience.