Every scholar, mature or young, need to pay due respect to the proponents of the concepts with which they work, because they have created the essential bricks of the intellectual building he/she aims to contribute at. It may happen that such respect, expressed by referencing determined authors, becomes a sort of ritual: you simply cannot avoid referencing them. Sometimes, the authors in question are referenced not only out of respect, but because they had made a deep impression in those using his/her insights, conjectures, conceptual proposals and empirical findings. Christopher Freeman was one of them. The organizers of this Special Section deeply believe this by their own experience, as students, researchers and, at least as important, as teachers. When we quote Chris Freeman, or when we explain Chris Freeman to our students, we refer to a way to looking into problems that helps understanding them in context. Perhaps these two elements are the key to his potent intellectual presence in innovation and development studies. Chris Freeman provides a powerful and multifaceted focusing device to look into problems and, even being an European scholar, he does not bear ‘the burden of the white man’, being thus recognized as an universal thinker, particularly from us, and for the authors of this Special Section: mature and young scholars of the Global South.
We justified the call for contributions to this Special Section through the following text:
Chris Freeman is an intellectual who deeply influenced our way of understanding the complex interplay between science, technology, production, innovation and development. While analysing the events of his time, he proposed theoretical – as well as normative – approaches of general scope. It is our contention that studying Freeman is a must for the young generation of scholars that all over the world are struggling to understand old and new features of the relationships between the production of knowledge –all type of knowledge-, the conditions of its use and the consequences for development processes. It is worth recalling that Chris Freeman was not only a founding father of the National Systems of Innovation approach but a man committed to values whose universality we took for granted. The vindication of those values is inseparable from its theoretical approach.
This Special Section will bring to the fore the way in which Chris Freeman’s ideas, reflections and proposals are integrated by young researchers of the Global South when addressing issues of innovation and development. Freeman belongs to the future through the dialogues that young scholars maintain with his ideas. We are certain of the capacity of his intellectual legacy to help answering old and new questions: we want to express this in this Special Section.
We decided that the young people would opt for two types of contributions: (i) short essays explaining how Freeman’s ideas, concepts or approaches helped each author to build their own framework of thought and to better understand their object of study, and (ii) a commentary on a paper written by Chris Freeman where some of his normative ideas are exposed. We received contributions of both types, from young PhDs and advanced PhD students from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The Special Section is organized into three sub-sections. The first includes essays from authors that reflect on how Freeman thinking influenced their own research; the second includes the essays that delve on Freeman concepts and approaches, and the third includes the shorter pieces we call comments.
Subsection one: how Freeman thinking influenced young southern scholars’ research
Betty-Ann Ananeh-Frempong, ‘Innovation in the backward linkage firms in Ghana’s gold mining sector’
Rhiannon Pugh, Jana Schmutzler and Alexandra Tvetskova, ‘Contextual and evolutionary perspectives on entrepreneurial ecosystems. Insights from Chris Freeman’s thinking’
Chipo N Ngongoni, ‘Looking to the old to understand the new – insight on how Innovation Ecosystems can leverage off Innovation systems’
Melina Galdos and Shagufta Haneef, ‘The Voluntary Underdevelopment Paradox: Revisiting Freeman’s Ideas on Indigenous Capabilities for Innovation in the Global South’
Manuel Gonzalo, ‘Freeman’s broadening contribution revisited: reasoned-history and systemic innovation policies from South America to the Global South’
Pavel Gabriel Corilloclla Terbullino, ‘A wake-up call from Chris Freeman’s understanding of innovation and innovation systems: Challenges for Latin America’
Subsection two: delving on Freeman concepts and approaches
Fakher Omezzine, Vidya Oruganti and Isabel Bodas Freitas, ‘Learning from Crisis: Repurposing to Address Grand Challenges’
Natalia Gras, ‘STI and Policies for Development: Freeman’s Contributions to Thinking Latin America Future’
José Miguel Natera, ‘The tree lives beyond its leaves: Freeman’s legacy on system thinking for innovation studies’
Subsection three: comments
Arthur Moreira, ‘Grand challenges and the role of the “linear model”’
Florencia Fiorentin and Diana Suárez, ‘If Freeman had seen the COVID-19 crisis. Reflections over the need for global Congruence’
Le Chen, ‘Christopher Freeman: the soul mentor for guiding to write a new chapter in the new era’
Antonio Biurrun, ‘A global value chain perspective on the phenomena of innovation and inequality’
Kejia Yang, ‘Innovation, Development and Sustainability: Inspirations of Freeman’s Economics of Hope’
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).