In early September 2014, UNU-MERIT’s Director, Prof. Bart Verspagen, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Oslo in Norway.
The award came in the context of a long-term partnership between UNU-MERIT and Oslo’s TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture. TIK is well known for its work on innovation, led by among others Magnus Gulbrandsen and Jan Fagerberg. Verspagen was Professor II at the TIK from 2001-2011 and has recently led several international research projects, including DIME, an EU-funded network of excellence. In 1993 he won the Myrdal Prize from the European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy.
The University of Oslo awards honorary doctorates every third year, during a ceremony in the Aula complete with famous paintings by Edvard Munch. This year Verspagen was joined by 16 other awardees in a ceremony attended by among others the Dutch Ambassador in Oslo, Mrs Bea ten Tusscher. The university has previously awarded honorary doctorates to economists such as John Maynard Keynes and Alva Myrdal. It also counts two Nobel laureates in economics, Trygve Haavelmo (1969) and Ragnar Frisch (1989).
After the ceremony Verspagen gave a public lecture on “Innovation, Value Chains and Development: How Globalization Offers Opportunities for Catching-Up Based Growth” (v. slides below).
OSLO LECTURE
MEDIA CREDITS
University of Oslo / G. Kolbjørnsen