When the Globelics PhD Academy returned to Lisbon in 2009, the international economic environment had changed considerably. The consequences of the global financial crisis created an especially relevant setting for a doctoral program concerned with innovation, institutional change and economic development. The sixth edition maintained the Academy’s established emphasis on doctoral research while providing an opportunity to discuss how different economies respond to structural challenges and how innovation capabilities can contribute to longer-term development.
The Lisbon edition continued the collaborative organizational structure developed during the Academy’s earlier years in Portugal. The Lisbon Academies were jointly organized by the Centre for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research (IN+) at Instituto Superior Técnico and ISEG, with Rui Baptista and Manuel Mira Godinho among those involved in local coordination. The 2009 edition became the fifth Academy held in Lisbon, following the editions from 2004 through 2007.
One particularly significant element of the 2009 program was its engagement with the international financial crisis. On 5 November, ISEG hosted the Globelics PhD School seminar “Out of the Financial Crisis in the BRICS.” Participating scholars included Shulin Gu, associated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Zhejiang University; Sunil Mani from the Centre for Development Studies in Kerala, India; and José Eduardo Cassiolato from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Their participation brought perspectives from major emerging economies into a discussion occurring at a critical moment for the international economic system.
This context gave the Academy particular relevance. Questions surrounding the BRICS economies opened space for considering whether different innovation systems provided countries with distinct capacities to respond to crisis, restructure productive activities and sustain technological development. Such discussions complemented the broader Globelics emphasis on understanding innovation through institutions, learning processes and competence building rather than through technological indicators alone.
At the same time, doctoral training remained the program’s central purpose. Participants were encouraged to present research, discuss conceptual and methodological choices and interact with scholars and fellow students working in different economic and institutional environments. The Academy thereby connected contemporary international developments with the longer-term research agendas of participating PhD candidates.
The 2009 edition ultimately brought the first Lisbon cycle of the Globelics Academy to a close. Across five editions hosted in the Portuguese capital, the program had developed a distinctive model of doctoral education grounded in international exchange and interactive learning. Against the exceptional background of the global financial crisis, the final Lisbon edition also demonstrated the Academy’s capacity to connect innovation scholarship with urgent questions concerning economic transformation, resilience and development.