Freeman’s broadening contribution revisited: reasoned-history and systemic STI policies from South America to the Global South

ABSTRACT

The aim of this short essay is to revisit and reposition Freeman’s broadening research and methodological contribution. In the first section, I point out that: (a) in conceptual terms, Freeman has worked in order to move away from the narrow R&D focus of the endogenous growth theory to develop the systemic understanding of the social process of evolution, particularly focusing on STI policies and (b) in methodological terms, Freeman has moved away from mere econometric and cliometrics approaches to reasoned-history, looking to reconciler the separation between history and economic theory under a heterodox framework. In the second section, I briefly contextualize Freeman’s interaction with the South American scholars on science, technology and society in order to frame how Freeman’s conceptual and methodological approaches helped me during my PhD Thesis research process. The essay concludes with some potential Global South dialogue on innovation, development and growth.

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Notes

1 The piece of works and personal descriptions of Freeman’s life and personality indicate that he was a generous, entrepreneurial and enlightened intellectual. Between many other things, he was born in Sheffield, he loved bird watching, he was a member of the communist party until the soviet invasion to Hungary and he built a solid dialogue with Global South scholars.

2 See Freeman (1987).

3 It is interesting to note that in the same year of Freeman introduce the 'new technology systems' framework in the 1982 book, Giovanni Dosi, Freeman’s PhD student, published in Research Policy his Technological Paradigms and Technological Trajectories: A Suggested Interpretation of the Determinants and Directions of Technical Change (1982). Between other things, this marks the SPRU intellectual atmosphere oriented to broaden the R+D endogenous growth discussion under Freeman’s leadership.

4 I would like to thank Alejandra Herrera, Amílcar Herrerás daughter, for the time and information she gave me related to the friendship relation between Freeman and Herrera.