Routledge Inequality and Development Challenges: BRICS National Systems of Innovation

This series of books brings together results of an extensive research programme on aspects of the national systems of innovation (NSI) in the five BRICS countries ― Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. It provides a comprehensive and comparative examination of the challenges and opportunities faced by these dynamic and emerging economies. In discussing the impact of innovation with respect to economic, geopolitical, socio-cultural, institutional, and technological systems, it reveals the possibilities of new development paradigms for equitable and sustainable growth. This volume analyses the co-evolution of inequality and NSI across the BRICS economies. It reveals the multi-dimensional character of inequality, in going beyond its income aspect to include assets, access to basic services, infrastructure, knowledge, race, gender, ethnicity and geographic location. In advancing valuable policy recommendations, the book argues that inequalities must be factored in development strategies given that benefits of innovation are not automatically distributed equally. Original and detailed data, together with expert analyses on wide-ranging issues, make this book an invaluable resource for researchers and scholars in economics, development studies and political science, in addition to policy-makers and development practitioners interested in the BRICS countries. Review ‘From a developmental point of view, a main issue is to orient innovation efforts in a direction that diminishes inequality, and to make inequality a point of departure for innovation efforts . . . The reader will find in this book all the information and analyses needed to understand how inequality looks like in the BRICS countries [and] how innovation can help fight inequality. The opportunity to do this, so rare, so timely, so welcome, is a contribution of the book to the wedding of innovation and solidarity.’ ― Judith Sutz, Academic Coordinator, Scientific Research Council, University de la República, Uruguay About the Author Maria Clara Couto Soares is Senior Researcher, Research Network on Local Productive and Innovative Systems-RedeSist, Institute of Economics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Mario Scerri is Professor of Economics, Tshwane University of Technology, and Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Economic Research on Innovation (IERI), South Africa. Rasigan Maharajh is Chief Director, Institute for Economic Research on Innovation, Faculty of Economics and Finance, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa.