Dr. Clovis Freire Junior


Affiliated Researcher

Research group(s):
1. Economics of Knowledge and Innovation

Clovis Freire is an Economic Affairs Officer at the Division on Technology and Logistics of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva. His work supports the use of science, technology and innovation for structural transformation and the achievement of sustainable development goals.

He is an economist and computer engineer specialised in the economics of innovation and technological change.  He did his undergraduate studies in computer engineering at the Technological Institute of Aeronautics (ITA), in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, from 1992 to 1996; and obtained a Master’s degree in Computer Sciences from the University de Brasília (UnB), in Brasilia, Brazil, in 2000; a MBA in Strategic Management of Information Systems from the Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), Brasilia, Brazil, in 2003; and a PhD degree in Economics from the Maastricht University, in Maastricht, the Netherlands, in 2017, with a thesis on Diversification and Structural Economic Dynamics.

Clovis Freire started his career as Lieutenant Engineer of the Brazilian Air Force in 1997, where he worked on computer networks and network security for five years. During that period, he also taught Computer Sciences at the UPIS University in Brasilia, Brazil. After that, he managed the department of technology development of an ICT consultancy firm in Brasilia, part of the engineering consulting Group Altran. In 2003, he joined the United Nations as Computer Network Engineer at the Headquarters in New York and in 2005 he moved to Bangkok to work in ICT for socio-economic development at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). For the following five years he worked in the areas of space applications for development, reduction of risk of natural disasters, and assessment of progress towards the achievement of the MDGs. In 2010, he joined the Macroeconomic Policy and Development Division of ESCAP working on poverty reduction, economic growth and structural change, with a particular focus on the least developed countries of the Asia-Pacific region. In 2015, he returned to the United Nations Headquarters in New York to work promoting the strengthening of the interface between science and policy for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, and the operationalisation of mechanisms to promote science, technology and innovation for the achievements of the SDGs. In 2018, he moved to UNCTAD to work on the UNCTAD's Technology and Innovation Report and Science, technology and Innovation Policy Reviews (STIP Reviews).

His research interests cover sustainable development, economic growth and structural transformation, evolutionary economics, economic diversification and strategies for building the productive capacities of developing countries, and simulation modelling of international economies.




Selected publications by Clovis Freire Junior


UNU-MERIT