Prof. Rajah Rasiah Ph.D.


Professorial fellow

Research group(s):
4. Governance and institutions
5. Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Sustainability Transitions

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. He was the first holder of the Khazanah Nasional Chair of Regulatory Studies, and served as Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya in 2009-2010 and 2013-2014. He served as an advisory member of the Industrial Development Research Centre, Zhejiang University (2010-2015), professorial fellow at UNU-MERIT (2004-), senior research Associate at the Technology Management and Development Centre at Oxford University, Adjunct Professor at Mohammad Ali Jinnah University (since 2016), Visiting Professor at UNIMAS (since 2018)., visiting Professor at Lahore School of Economics (2018-2019)

His policy-oriented work includes research in several countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Among the major contributions he has made for the benefit of society include the conceptualization of technology, and its link to development, and methodologies designed to capture clustering, technological capabilities and industrial policies. UNCTAD, UNIDO, World Bank, ILO, WIPO, UNESCO, UNDP, ADB and ERIA have commissioned the writing of several reports for guiding industrial policy in the developing economies. The UNDP appointed him in 2007-08 to evaluate the capacity of leading universities in Indonesia, Malaysia and India to support sustainable development among the developing economies. He was also one of the principal authors of the UNIDO’s 2009 flagship report, and one of the editors of the 2015 UNESCO Science Report. He has also led country technology and industrial reports for Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Viet Nam and Timor-Leste. His research and policy work has produced over 300 publications in international journals and book publishers.

While the prime focus of his research is on technology and international development, he has also worked extensively on foreign investment, human capital, public health and environment. He is the 2014 recipient of the Celso Furtado prize from the World Academy of Sciences for advancing the frontiers of Social Science (Economics) thought. In 2017 he was appointed a Distinguished Professor in Economics by the High Education Ministry of Malaysia, while in 2018 he was awarded the Merdeka (Independence) Award.

Download CV




Selected publications by Rajah Rasiah


UNU-MERIT