Innovative Economic Development and Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

Innovation and transformative change are widely reckoned as engines of economic development. This holds for advanced economies (Schumpeter 1934), and also for those engaging in closing a gap (Gerschenkron 1962), a process expected to spur the convergence of technologies, structures, and models (Abramovitz 1986). Nonetheless, followers can find it hard to gain anything from opportunities spilling over the frontier (Acemoglu 2015), and meeting new ones might demand creativity and originality (Hirschman 1967). Innovation can be said to be the substance of economic development, when we intend it as innovation-driven development, unexplored developmental frontiers, and unprecedented experiences, strategies or projects opening to new developmental opportunities, emerging behaviors, rules and institutions.

Innovativeness is necessary as developmental challenges are becoming tougher and more urgent. Recently, consensus has spread on the need to pave more sustainable paths of innovative economic development at a global scale. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals represent a milestone in thinking economic development and sustainability as increasingly intertwined (United Nations 2015). The Brundtland report (WCED, 1987) defined sustainable development as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own. Academic literature explored several heterogeneous lines, in terms of i) methodological approaches (e.g., theoretical model and qualitative and empirical works); ii) thematic focus (e.g., studies on contingent needs of the current generation and on justice towards future generations); iii) research domains (e.g., economics, biology, engineering and arts and literature). These works share a common vision of a research landscape in which the economic dimension cannot disregard the social and environmental ones. Nonetheless, events such as the COP25 (Madrid, 2019) remind us that a general agreement about the tools, strategies, and responsibilities in this direction has not been achieved yet.

This Special Issue aims to collect up-to-date contributions to the literature on the linkages between innovative economic development and sustainability as they are described above, the factual mechanisms, the emerging issues, and the possible solutions to trade-offs slowing down or even hindering nations to agree on a global strategy and shared efforts. The collection is open to a variety of manuscripts, including research articles, reviews, and concept papers. Regardless of the form, we expect contributions inspired by real-world cases, such as new data collections, case studies, exploratory analyses, empirical exercises and meta-analyses, exercises of design thinking and policy evaluation, as well as efforts in theorizing on a real-world issue or experience.

References

• Abramovitz, M. Catching Up, Forging Ahead, and Falling Behind. Econ. Hist. 1986, 46, 385–406.
• Acemoglu, D. Localised and Biased Technologies: Atkinson and Stiglitz’s New View, Induced Innovations, and Directed Technological Change. J. 2015, 125, 443–463.
• United Nations World Commission of Environment and Development Our Common Future; New York, 1987.
• Gerschenkron, A. Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective; Belknap Press: Cambridge MA, 1962; ISBN 9780674226005.
• Hirschman, A.O. Development Projects Observed; The Brookings Institution: Washington DC, 1967; ISBN 9780815726425.
• Schumpeter, J.A. The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle; English.; Harvard University Press: Cambridge MA, 1934; ISBN 9780674879904.
• United Nations Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development; A/RES/70/1: United Nations General Assembly, 2015.

Prof. Dr. Federico Frattini
Dr. Francesco Nicolli
Dr. Marianna Gilli
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Development
• Innovation
• Frontier
• Experience
• Opportunities
• Consensus
• Mechanism
• Strategy
• Real world
• Sustainability