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The “Catchup Network”

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The "Catchup Network"

The catch-up network involves a sizeable collection of scholars, from many countries, who view the economic development process as involving innovation in an essential way. While the new modes of doing things that are being put in place in economic development may not be new to the world, learning how to operate them entails many of the same uncertainties and often requires the same kinds of radical restructuring that is associated with innovation at the frontiers of technology. Participants in the catch-up network, in addition to seeing development as being driven by and influencing innovation, also see modern economic systems as involving a complex mix of institutions; for profit firms and market organization are an important part of that institutional mix, but so are school and medical care systems, universities, public research laboratories, and government programs of a wide variety of shapes and forms.

The catch-up network is affiliated with Globelics, and is focused on helping to form and support research projects oriented by the themes articulated above. At the present time the research projects that have gotten started include:

The nature of innovative firms in developing countries
The roles of research at universities and public labs in development
Sectoral innovation systems
Intellectual property rights regimes and economic development
Metrics for innovation in developing economies

It is anticipated that several other research projects will emerge in the near future.

The research projects of the catch-up network are to a considerable extent self organized and are responsible for their own financing. However, the sponsors of catch-up are committed to sponsoring a series of meetings of the catch-up community as a whole, or parts of it, to help sustain cross project communication, and to help new projects get formed. To date, catch-up meetings have been sponsored by Columbia University (May 2005), and the University of Manchester (May 2006). Arrangements are in progress for subsequent meetings, in particular, in Milan (September 2006).

Since that time the network has expanded significantly and the research projects mentioned above launched, the statement below still broadly describes the orientation of the project.

If you wish to join the Network please contact Siobhan Drugan.

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