Panel IV: Regional Innovation System and Cross-Regional Experiences

Stephen Little PhD(RCA) FeRSA FHEA

Stephen Little is Professor Extraordinaire in the Department of Industrial Engineering, Tshwane University of Technology and an associate of the SARChI Innovation Studies Research Group, Tshwane University of Technology He is also an external doctoral supervisor in the Centre for Islamic Finance, University of Bolton, UK

After graduating from the Birmingham School of Architecture he studied applied psychology at Aston University. In 1983, following a decade of practice as an architect in urban renewal in Manchester and Glasgow, he was awarded a PhD on the organisational impact of computer aided design at the Royal College of Art, London.

Subsequently he held full-time appointments in Information Systems at Griffith University Queensland, the University of Wollongong NSW, Manchester Metropolitan University UK and in Knowledge Management at the Open University, UK. Visiting appointments include the Urban Research Program, Australian National University Canberra, the Australian Graduate School of Management, NSW and Erasmus University, Netherlands together with appointments as an external examiner at London Metropolitan, Birmingham, Manchester Metropolitan and Manchester universities.

Prior to his retirement from the Open University Business School in 2013 he had headed the Centre for Innovation, Knowledge and Enterprise and been co-director of the cross-faculty Centre for Innovation, Knowledge and Development. He was also responsible for the development and delivery of teaching modules in knowledge management, entrepreneurship and strategic management in life sciences and healthcare.

He was Chairman of the Asia Pacific Technology Network from 2008 to 2016, a Council Member of Design Research Society and a board member of Asia Pacific Researchers in Organization Studies. As a Fellow of the Regional Studies Association and a Life Member of the International Sociological Association, his current research interests include the global migration of skilled labour, the contribution of large science projects to innovation in the wider economy and the role of place-branding and heritage in regional development.

Margrethe Holm Andersen is Senior Advisor at the Department of Politics and Society at Aalborg University. She is the academic coordinator of the AfricaLics Visiting Fellowship Programme for African PhD candidates and post-docs (www.africalics.org) and a participant in the IREK project (www.irekproject.net) focused on renewable electrification in Kenya. She also serves as Chair of the Board of the Danida Fellowship Centre (www.dfcentre.dk) and as external examiner at Center for Africa Studies (Copenhagen University). Her main areas of research includes research on innovative capabilities for transition and sustainable development, health systems strengthening, gender relations, research capacity building and evaluation of development cooperation and research capacity development.

Margrethe has more than 30 years of experience from research, short-term consultancies; and planning, implementation and evaluation of development cooperation. She has worked on a broad range of issues including agriculture and environment, climate change issues, fragile states, gender relations and civil society support. She holds a Master in Public Administration (AAU 1988) and a Ph.D. in gender relations and development (AAU, 1992) and worked in various capacities for the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1993-2013. In 2013, she joined the Globelics secretariat at Aalborg University to help support the development of the AfricaLics research network.

Rajah Rasiah is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Asia Europe Institute, University of Malaya.. He obtained his doctorate in Economics from Cambridge University in 1992, and was a Rajawali fellow at Harvard University in 2014. Among his external positions include: Professorial Fellow at UNU-MERIT, the Technology Management and Development Centre at Oxford University, the Centre for Rising Powers, Cambridge University, and UNITEN. He was also one of the principal authors of UNIDO’s 2009 flagship report, and one of the editors of the 2015 UNESCO Science Report, and contributors to the UNESCO Science Report 2021. He is the 2014 recipient of the Celso Furtado prize from the World Academy of Sciences for advancing the frontiers of social science thought. In light of his scholastic contributions, Malaysia's Ministry of Higher Education conferred him the award of Distinguished Professor in Economics in 2017. He was awarded the Merdeka Prize for academic excellence in 2018, and conferred the title, Dato’ Paduka Mahkota Perak in 2019.

Edward Lorenz is Professor of Economics at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis and

Assigned Professor at the University of Aalborg. He is a member of the University of Côte

d’Azur. Other appointments he has held include Research Associate at the Center for

Employment Studies, Paris (1999-2008), Associate Research Fellow at the School of

Management and Organizational Psychology, Birkbeck College (2000-2003) and Research

Associate at the Cambridge Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge (2000-

2005).

Edward Lorenz was awarded his B.S in Economics at MIT (1975), his M.A. in Economics at

the University of California, Berkeley (1977) and his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of

Cambridge, UK (1983). His research focuses on the internationally comparative analysis of

business organization, employment relations and innovation systems with an emphasis on

Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa. His work has been financed by various national and

international organizations including the Directorate Research of the European Commission, ,

the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound),

the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and DARES of the

Ministry of Labour, France. He was co-director of the EU Coordinating Action project

MEADOW (Measuring the Dynamics of Work and Organization) designed to set up standards

for collecting and interpreting harmonized data on organizational change and its economic and

social impacts at the EU level. 

"Dr. Swapan Kumar Patra is a researcher attached with Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria South. Dr. Patra is a PhD in science policy studies from School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi, India.

He works in the areas of Globalization of R&D, Multinational Enterprises, Innovation System.

Dr. Rebecca Hanlin is Innovation and Development Specialist for AfricaLics based at African Centre for Technology Studies in Nairobi. Rebecca is also a Visiting Fellow at the Development Policy and Practice unit at the Open University and at the Innovation, Knowledge and Development group at Aalborg University, Denmark.

Rebecca received her PhD at the University of Edinburgh in the area of science and technology studies.  She has an BSc (Hons) in Development Studies and Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, an MSc (Econ) in Health Policy, Planning and Financing, a joint award from London School of Economics and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an MSc (Res) in Science and Technology Studies from University of Edinburgh.

Rebecca has over 20 years of experience living, working and researching in Africa especially, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania.  Her research work is in the area of innovation and development. Particular research interests include: innovation for pro-poor growth, scientific research capacity strengthening; the intangibles of innovation; and the application of innovation systems concepts in developing world settings.  Rebecca currently leads ACTS’ work on rural electrification in Kenya (www.irekproject.net) and has recently completed a project focused on the challenges facing African science granting councils in building science systems. Rebecca is also engaged in health innovation research.  In 2020 two books that she is co-editing will be published.  The first book will be published by Routledge and outlines the findings of the IREK project while the second book will to be published by ACTS Press and outlines the lessons learnt from three years interacting with African science granting councils.