Concept Note GLOBELICS India 2023

The Globelics network was started twenty years ago with the first international conference in held Rio de Janeiro in 2003. The main aim of the Network was to focus on Learning, Innovation and Competence-building Systems (LICS) to understand the nexus between innovation and development. This 20^th anniversary conference will use the opportunity to reflect on insights generated by the network and the future research agenda.

Episodes of development in economic history highlight the successful experience of countries that have managed to harness Learning, Innovation and Competence-building Systems at the global, national, subnational and sectoral levels to transform their social and economic structures for achieving prosperity. In current times, the constellation of innovations driven by rapid advances in digital technologies have given rise to a new technological revolution (commonly referred to as the fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0) with profound impacts on all sectors of the economies and sections of societies. New and persisting developmental challenges have driven a renewed interest in types of innovation that highlight their impact on society and the natural environment, such as inclusive innovation, responsible innovation, transformative innovation, grassroots innovation and jugaad. At the core of all these approaches is how knowledge, both science-based and experience-based, is harnessed for addressing development challenges. The basic premise being the knowledge divide is at the root of the development divide.

At the current juncture wherein, globalisation is at a crossroads the economies across world, ravaged by the once in a century pandemic and external shocks, consider strengthening innovation system as a strategic approach towards building resilience. Evidently, there is an across-the-board drive among the developing countries to transform their economies into innovation-driven knowledge economies. Such a transformation is often viewed as capable of building resilience by addressing many of the downsides of globalisation-induced high growth, like excessive exploitation of exhaustible resources and accentuated divides within and between countries. Such initiatives in India are manifested, among others, in Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), Digital India, Skill India and Make in India and other concerted efforts to transform India to an innovation knowledge economy. It is also in sync with the national agenda of harnessing Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) for achieving sustainable development. The choice of the location of the conference is inspired by Kerala’s strategy towards transforming the state to a knowledge economy as explicitly stated in the budget 2020-2021. It is against this background that Globelics revisits India for the 20th Globelics International conference with the chosen central theme ‘Innovation-Driven Knowledge-Economies and Transformation in the Global South’.

The 20^th Anniversary Globelics is also an occasion to celebrate the journey of Globelics from Brazil 2003 to India 2023 and its varied achievements. At the same, it is also a forum for critically reflecting on our perspective and the approaches inter alia in terms of its achievements and limits.  This is especially important at the current juncture wherein there is growing disenchantment with the development experience under globalisation on the one hand and the need for reimagining innovation system in the COVID and Post COVID world towards building the much needed resilience in the South.

Globelics-India 2023 coincides with India’s Presidency of G-20 that inter alia aims at influencing the development dynamics of Global South and it is an appropriate time for translating the insights of the conference with respect to strengthening Learning, Innovation and Competence building Systems (LICS) into policy action.  In the past two decades, we have observed the increasing presence of Global South in shaping the paradigms and trajectories of global development agenda— sustainability, climate change, pandemic, energy security issues – with India playing a key role; all being closely linked to the research domains of the Globelics. 

The 20^th Globelics Conference intends to bring together scholars across disciplines from different parts of the world to pool together experiences and expertise to reflect on varied issues involved in transforming developing economies to sustainable, resilient and inclusive innovation-driven knowledge economies.

World-leading scholars will give this year’s keynote address on innovation and development, and it is planned that the conference will be inaugurated by The Chief Minister of Kerala. There will be a special keynote on the conference theme along with Globelics Lecture and Freeman Lecture.  The conference will combine plenary sessions, presentations of research papers in parallel tracks, thematic panel sessions or special sessions, poster presentations, book presentation session, excursions and cultural events.