DaY 5

Rethinking Human Capital 

Lecturer: Frank Neffke (Complexity Science Hub Vienna)

• Human capital as skill vectors

• Complementarity and coordination: conceptualizing human capital beyond the individual

• Consequences for macro level development 

Break 10:30 - 11:00

Selective industrial policy for the EU open strategic autonomy: the role of products’ relatedness

Speaker: Filippo Bontadini (LUISS university)

The European Union is facing a growing dependence vis-à-vis external suppliers around strategic technologies, components, and raw materials that are crucial to achieve a fair and successful twin transition both in the green and digital areas. In this context it has developed the concept of open strategic autonomy envisaging the necessity to strengthen existing industrial capabilities and developing new ones, while maintaining an open trade policy. In view of these goals, the Draghi Report explicitly calls to set priorities for selective targeted industrial policy. This paper focuses on a selection of products belonging to sensitive ecosystems where Europe has a dependence and on a set of products relevant for the twin transition and, based on the economic literature on capabilities and economic relatedness, identifies which products are closest to countries’ productive structure. The results of the empirical analyses point to the importance of considering technological complementarities when designing policy interventions and of better coordinating industrial strategies between the EU and Member States.

From theory to policy: Leveraging Economic Complexity and Product Space for strategic diversification in developing countries

Speaker: Clovis Freire (UN Trade and Development - UNCTAD)

This presentation explores how Economic Complexity and Product Space analysis can inform strategic economic diversification in developing countries. Drawing on two recent UNCTAD initiatives (i.e. the Suape Industrial Port Complex project in Brazil and the ongoing Rapid Assessment of Value Addition and Diversification Capacities in Namibia, Zambia, and Madagascar)  the presentation illustrates how data-driven insights can guide countries in identifying viable, higher-value sectors based on existing capabilities, and guide the design and policy instruments to foster diversification. The approach bridges top-down development priorities with bottom-up evidence from production and trade structures, offering a practical two-step framework to translate diversification potential into targeted policy action. The case studies show how these tools could help countries move out of commodity dependence, building diversified, resilient and inclusive economies that are better positioned in global value chains.

Capabilities, Relatedness, and Complexity: Exploring Drivers and Content of Upgrading

Speaker: Alessia Lo Turco (Marche Polytechnic University in Ancona)

This talk explores how firm-level capabilities, regional knowledge ecosystems, and the presence of foreign firms jointly shape product innovation and upgrading in the context of low- and middle-income countries. Drawing on rich data from Turkey’s manufacturing sector, it highlights how strong cognitive path dependence in firms’ product development can be mitigated by heterogeneous exposure to global interactions. The analysis reveals that product discoveries are closely linked to technological proximity to foreign affiliates - far more than to domestic peers or import flows - underscoring the pivotal role of foreign direct investment in enabling complex product introduction. Moreover, firms more integrated into supply chains of foreign affiliates show a significantly higher propensity to upgrade toward more sophisticated products. Broadening the perspective, the talk also investigates the knowledge and skill intensity underlying product complexity. It examines how the occupational content of industries relates to long-term regional economic performance, offering new insights into the role of workforce capabilities in sustaining industrial upgrading and regional development.

Lunch 12:30 - 13:30

The bidirectional learning process supervisor-PhD student

Speaker: Fabiana Visentin (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University)

In contexts involving teachers and students, knowledge transfer is commonly assumed from the former to the latter. However, what if teachers learn from students? This paper investigates the bidirectional knowledge transfer between PhD students and their supervisors. We consider 40,852 PhD students who graduated in the STEM fields in France between 2010 and 2018. Focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) knowledge transfer, we find evidence that a student supervised by a supervisor with AI knowledge is 10 percentage points more likely to write a thesis in AI than a student with a supervisor with no AI knowledge, denoting an AI knowledge transfer from supervisors to students. We also find that a supervisor with no AI knowledge is 19 percentage points more likely to publish an article with AI content if exposed to a student with AI knowledge than a supervisor not exposed to a student with AI knowledge, denoting an AI knowledge transfer from students to supervisors. Those results confirm the bidirectionality of the learning process.

Economic Complexity for policy — Roundtable 

Panellists: Masud Cader (IFC-World Bank), Bernardo Caldarola (JRC-European Commission), Intan M. Hamdan-Livramento (WIPO), Nanditha Mathew (UNU-CRIS), Shri M. B. Rajesh (Minister for Local Self-Governments, Rural Development and Excise in the Government of Kerala)
Moderator: Emanuele Pugliese