Honoray lecture Prof. Dominique Foray

Introduction by Prof. Rüdiger Fahlenbrach, Director of the College of Management of Technology and Prof. Daniel Kuhn, Director of the Institute of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Time: 17h15-18h30, followed by an apéritif
Room: SV1717

For those out of town, the event can also be followed online.
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"Innovation economics for hard times"
The innovation economy of the 20th century was admirable. It triggered a spectacular improvement in daily life conditions and sustained an incredible growth of the standards of living in the West and beyond. But this innovation regime (called by some scholars ‘’innovism’’) was also disappointing. It has produced four big problems – the climate and biodiversity crisis, the many inequalities generated by innovation, the declining capacity of our economies to create ‘’good jobs’’ and the problem of regulating ‘’bad innovations’’ such as innovations generating addictions. A new innovation economy is needed to respond to these problems by inventing and implementing institutions and policies to get a better control on the direction of innovation by society. However, previous successes were partly based on a set of institutions and values, including freedom to experiment and the autonomy of innovators vis-à vis governments. How to solve this tension between freedom and control ? How to create a new innovation economy which will keep some of the ingredients which are so important to sustain this extraordinary dynamism, while developing the new instruments allowing overcoming the four aforementioned problems ?



Bio Dominique Foray
Prof. Dominique Foray joined EPFL in 2004 as a full professor, holding the Chair of Economics and Management of Innovation until his retirement in 2022. During his tenure, he served as director of the College of Management of Technology from 2004 to 2008 and again from 2018 to 2022, and as director of the doctoral school in Management of Technology from 2012 until 2018.
Prof. Foray received his PhD in 1984 and Habilitation in 1992 from the Université Lumière Lyon 2. In 1986, he joined the CNRS as a research fellow. In 1990, he became a professor of Economics at the Ecole Centrale Paris, returning to the CNRS in 1994 as Research Director. From 2000 to 2004, he served as a principal analyst at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), contributing to the program on "National Systems of Innovation."
He previously served as a member of the Swiss National Research Council (2007-2015) and as chairman of the Advisory Board of the Swiss Economic Research Institute (KOF) (2016 – 2020). Between 2008 and 2011, he chaired the expert group “Knowledge for Growth” for the European Commission, developing the concept of smart specialization which is now a key instrument of the EU cohesion policy. He also served on the Expert Commission for Research and Innovation of Germany (2013-2016) and was part of the Expert Group for the two first editions of Swiss National Report on Research and Innovation (SBFI, Switzerland).
His research interests cover essentially innovation economics and policy. He has published many academic articles and numerous books. For example: ‘’Technology and the Wealth of Nations” with C.Freeman (Pinter); ‘’Advancing Knowledge and the Knowledge Economy’’ with B.Kahin (MIT Press); ‘’The Economics of Knowledge’’ (MIT Press); ‘’The New Economics of Technology Policy ‘’ (Edward Elgar) and “Smart Specialization: Opportunities and Challenges for Regional Innovation Policy’’ (Routledge).
Prof. Foray is a member of the Swiss Council for Science (SWR) and is still teaching at EPFL (Bachelor and doctoral courses).