Manufacturing the Innovation Economy: Industrial Ecosystem and Policy in the Emilia Romagna Region

11 July 2016

The Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development; the South African Research Chair in Industrial Development; and the Government Technical Advisory Centre have the pleasure of inviting you to the following seminar:

'Manufacturing the innovation economy: Industrial ecosystem and policy in the Emilia Romagna Region by Antonioa Andreoni, SOAS, University of London.'

Manufacturing constantly changes its nature and, thus, the ways in which it catalyses economic growth, learning and innovation dynamics, both within and across sectors of the economy. The seminar draws on extensive field work in one of the world-leading manufacturing regions – Emilia Romagna, Italy – to disentangle the complex architecture of modern industrial ecosystems and the various types of learning, innovation and diversification processes determining value creation and capture dynamics. We focus on two high-value manufacturing industries: production of automated packaging machineries and medical device system technologies. Industrial ecosystems involve multiple actors, including various types of firms as well as public-private technology intermediaries supported by regional governments. Industrial policy and, critically their alignment to the ongoing transformation in technologies and industrial ecosystems, can play an important role in manufacturing the innovation economy in catching up regions.

Date: Monday, 11 July 2016
Time: 16h30 for 17h00 (refreshments will be provided before the seminar)
Venue: CCRED Seminar Room, 2nd Floor, 5 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg (click here for map)
RSVP: Email reshmis@uj.ac.za

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Antonio Andreoni (PhD, Cambridge) is Lecturer in Economics at the Department of Economics of the School of Oriental and African Studies – SOAS, University of London where he leads the Interdepartmental Research Cluster on Industrial Development and Policy. Also, Research Fellow at the Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge and Member of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue JICA/IPD Task Forces on ‘Industrial Policy’ and ‘Quality of Growth in Africa’ at Columbia University. Advisor to a number of government and organisations including UNIDO, ILO, UNCTAD, UNDP, UN DESA, OECD, BMZ-GIZ, DFID and UK Government Office for Science, Tanzania MITI and EAC.