Way Beyond the Cascade: Reinterpreting National Systems of Innovation - Perspectives of an Innovation-oriented Research of Science Systems

It is widely acknowledged that economies in the 21st century are heavily dependent upon knowledge. In this context, the university does not only play a critical role in the performance of any advanced society in the OECD world, but it has also played that role in expanding the stock of useful knowledge for a long time. While such descriptions may appear obvious, in particular to an audience in Germany, where the research university was created in the last few decades of the 19th century, it is nonetheless important to discuss its current and future role for innovation in an information economy.

Nathan Rosenberg is Professor of Economics (Emeritus) in the Department of Economics at Stanford University. He is also Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

Nathan Rosenberg’s primary research activities have been in the economics of technological change. His publications have addressed both the questions of the determinants and the consequences of technological change. His research has examined the diversity of the forces generating technological change across industrial boundary lines, as well as the mutual influences between scientific research and technological innovation. Nathan Rosenberg’s books include Perspectives on Technology (1976), Inside the Black Box (1983), Technology and the Pursuit of Economic Growth (with David Mowery; 1991), How the West Grew Rich (with L.E. Birdzell, Jr.; 1986), Exploring the Black Box (1994), The Emergence of Economic Ideas (1994), Paths of Innovation (with David Mowery; 1998), Schumpeter and the Endogeneity of Technology (2000), and most recently, Studies on Science and the Innovation
Process (2009).

The Guest Lecture is hosted by the WZB Research Group ‚Science Policy Studies‘.