Learning, Capability Building and Innovation for Development

Today, a large number of scholars studying development understand the process as involving active learning and capability building. Capability building is an active, not a passive, process. It requires a purposeful effort from the learner's side supported by committed allocation of time and resources toward learning activities. This process implies the possibility of failure as well as success, as we also learn from failures. A global cast of academics and policy-makers examine economic development as a process of learning and technological accumulation, showing how economic development is a process involving creative destruction. While markets and market competition play major roles in structuring the development process, non-market institutions and government policies matter.

Gabriela Dutrenit is Professor of Economics and Innovation Management at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Mexico, and she is currently the President of Mexico's Advisory Forum on Science and Technology, an advisory organism of STI policies to the government.

Alexandre O. Vera-Cruz is Professor of the Master and PhD programs in Economics and Management of Innovation at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Mexico.

Keun Lee is Professor of Economics at Seoul National University, South Korea, and Director of the Center for Economic Catch-up. He is a co-editor for Research Policy, the managing editor of Seoul Journal of Economics, and President of the Asia-Pacific Innovation Network.

Luc Soete is Director of the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance of Maastricht University, Netherlands. He is a member of the Board of the Maastricht School of Management (MSM) and the Belgian media company Concentra.

Richard R. Nelson is Professor of Economics at Columbia University, USA. He is currently the George Blumenthal Professor Emeritus of International and Public Affairs, Business, and Law, and the director of the Program on Science, Technology and Global Development at Columbia's The Earth Institute. He is also a part-time faculty in the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR, formerly known as PREST), University of Manchester.