Innovation, Equity & The Future of Prosperity
How can innovation be beneficial to all?
The benefits of innovation tend to be concentrated to a limited number of industries, regions, and groups. Innovation that exacerbates inequality can undermine public support for science and innovation and contribute to broader political alienation. The Innovation, Equity & the Future of Prosperity program brings together economists, political scientists, engineers, and historians to examine how the policies used to generate and diffuse innovation affect the distribution of opportunities and outcomes in society.
IMPACT CLUSTERS
The Innovation, Equity & the Future of Prosperity program is part of the following CIFAR Impact Clusters: Building Thriving Societies and Exploring Emerging Technologies. CIFAR’s research programs are organized into 5 distinct Impact Clusters that address significant global issues and are committed to fostering an environment in which breakthroughs emerge.
Applications Now Open: CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars Program
Innovation, equity, and prosperity are central to our collective well-being. But they’re related to each other in unknown ways. Some believe that they are complements: that innovation not only provides opportunities for the poor and disenfranchised, but requires their protection, education, and involvement. Others worry that they are at odds with each other: that innovation presupposes and reproduces a "winner-take-all" society that rewards wealthy firms and individuals and leaves the bulk of the population behind. Are the policies and practices that drive innovation and equity complements or competitors? Do the answers depend on the social and historical context? And, if so, how? Participants in the Innovation, Equity, and the Future of Prosperity program are addressing these questions by pursuing grounded research, centering different concepts of equity, and developing new approaches that draw upon the tools and insights of multiple fields and subfields. Program members come from an array of disciplines — ranging from law to the humanities, from the social sciences to engineering — and are united by a single goal: to understand the relationships between discovery, diffusion, and distribution in the twenty-first century and beyond.
RESEARCH AND SOCIETAL IMPACT HIGHLIGHTS
Shaping the future of innovation
Program Co-Director Dan Breznitz (University of Toronto) served as the Clifford Clarke Economist of the Government of Canada and advised on a number of files, among them the creation of the Canada Innovation Corporation, announced and funded in Budget 2022. This is the first effort to create an independent experimental learning public agency at the federal level.
New findings on innovation and employment
CIFAR Fellow Keun Lee (Seoul National University) uncovered how innovation affects employment by using South Korean data to untangle the effects of process versus product innovation on employment and wages. Through this work, Lee demonstrated that on the sectoral level, product innovation has positive employment effects while process innovation is virtually neutral — these findings will have major implications for the future of work.
Founded
2019
Partners
The British Academy
Supporters
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Max Bell Foundation, Scotiabank
Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Economics
Political Science
Sociology
Engineering
History
Law
Legal Studies
Public Policy
Social Policy
CIFAR Contact
Fellows & Advisors
Program Directors
Dan Breznitz
Program Co-Director
Jane Gingrich
Program Co-Director
Andrew Schrank
Program Co-Director
Fellows
Yochai Benkler
Fellow
Aldo Geuna
Fellow
University of Torino
Ray Gosine
Fellow
William Lazonick
Fellow
Keun Lee
Fellow
Karen Levy
Fellow
Kenneth Lipartito
Fellow
Goldie Nejat
Fellow
Olav Sorenson
Fellow
Adia Harvey Wingfield
Fellow
Caitlin Zaloom
Fellow
Amos Zehavi
Fellow
Advisors
Suzanne Berger
Advisor
Elizabeth Croft
Advisor
J. Bradford DeLong
Advisor
Maryann Feldman
Advisor
Susan Helper
Advisor
National Bureau of Economic Research
Walter Powell
Advisor
Manuel Trajtenberg
Advisor
CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars
Christof Brandtner
CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar 2023-2025
Daniel Aldana Cohen
CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars 2021-2023
Ameet Morjaria
CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars 2021-2023
Northwestern University
Khalil Ramadi
CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar 2023-2025
Nicole Wu
CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar 2023-2025
David Y. Yang
CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars 2021-2023
Baobao Zhang
CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars 2021-2023
Syracuse University
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Announcement
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Brief
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Advances
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