Every year, UNU-MERIT organizes in collaboration with local partners and possibly other sponsors an international conference on the topic of micro evidence on innovation and development. The first conference took place in Maastricht (the Netherlands) in 2007 and was followed by conferences in Beijing (China), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Tartu (Estonia), San Jose (Costa Rica), Cape Town (South Africa), Santiago (Chile), New Delhi (India), Moscow (Russia) and Montevideo (Uruguay). The aim of the conference is to bring together researchers from around the world to discuss the importance of innovation for economic growth and development, as well as other aspects of development such as studies on science, education, trade, migration or policy evaluation. Sometimes, a special theme is put forward, such as inclusive innovation, intellectual property rights or obstacles to innovation. Priority is given to empirical studies that are devoted to developing countries and that are based on micro data, such as innovation surveys, R&D surveys, firm and household surveys, patents, publications, or research grants. There is also room for methodological and theoretical papers as well as for evidence from case studies.In 2016, we have decided to enlarge the scope of the conference to include papers based on macro data.
- Project Coordinator