Our Identity

Innovation That Puts People First

At Globelics, we believe development isn’t about copying what works elsewhere—it’s about building up local capabilities, empowering communities, and creating pathways that work for diverse contexts and challenges.

What Drives Us

• Placing the Global South at the center of innovation research, not the periphery
• Recognizing innovation everywhere—from high-tech labs to informal markets, from grassroots movements to agricultural communities
• Putting people first in our concept of development, expanding capabilities of those long excluded from decision-making
• Building bridges between researchers, policymakers, and communities to create real-world impact

Our name itself embodies our philosophy: LICS (Learning, Innovation, and Competence-building Systems) captures our “build-up” approach—developing local strengths rather than simply catching up to a distant technological frontier.

Transforming How the World Thinks About Innovation

For too long, innovation studies focused almost exclusively on wealthy nations, high-tech industries, and formal sectors. Globelics changed that conversation.

We’ve shown that innovation:

• Happens in informal economies, where entrepreneurs create solutions with limited resources
• Thrives in local communities, where traditional knowledge meets modern challenges
• Emerges from social movements, addressing inequality and exclusion
• Involves directing global value chains towards development strategies that could connect domestic productive systems to industrialization opportunities for development
• Powers green transitions, offering leapfrogging opportunities for sustainable development
• Drives inclusive development, when policies recognize diverse actors and pathways

Real-World Impact

Our research doesn’t stay in academic journals. Globelics members have:

• Advised governments in Brazil, South Africa, India, Kenya, Argentina, Mexico, and Korea
• Shaped innovation policies that recognize local realities and capabilities
• Influenced international organizations including UN agencies and development banks
• Generated evidence that challenges one-size-fits-all development models
• Trained thousands of researchers, particularly early-careers and emerging scholars, and policymakers who carry our insights into practice

When the COVID-19 pandemic exposed dangerous dependencies on concentrated global supply chains, our two decades of research on local capabilities and autonomy in strategic sectors suddenly became urgent policy wisdom.

Research & Knowledge for development

To study and analyze the role of innovation and innovation systems as complexes of institutions that mold and support development across countries at varying development modes.

Policy Dialogue

To actively engage with policy makers, NGOs, and business managers, translating research insights into actionable global development solutions.

Democratic Governance

To provide the active academic community with a transparent, member-driven governance structure, allowing scholars to directly influence the network’s direction and leadership through open voting procedures.

Conceived at the very beginning of the new millennium, Globelics was inspired by the pioneering work of Bengt-Åke Lundvall, Christopher Freeman and Richard Nelson. The network was developed through conversations among scholars from all around the globe. In November 2002, the first formal meeting took place in Aalborg, Denmark. This milestone was followed by the inaugural Globelics Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2003), and the first Globelics Academy in Lisbon, Portugal (2004).

Since then, Globelics has grown into a worldwide community committed to understanding how learning, innovation and competence building shape development processes across different contexts. Over the years, the network has created a unique space for dialogue among scholars, policymakers and practitioners from the Global South and North, with a strong emphasis on the challenges faced by developing countries. Its conferences, academies and regional networks have helped consolidate an international research agenda on innovation systems, technological capabilities, inclusive development and science, technology and innovation policy. Through this collective effort, Globelics has become not only an academic network, but also a platform for capacity building, South–South collaboration and policy-oriented debate on the role of innovation in development.