The work carried out during the project was in line with the above-mentioned goals of the project.
During the first period the fellow focused on reviewing the state of art of the scientific literature on migration and innovation and the relevant methodologies used for data analysis in this field.
At the same time the fellow undertook formal training in in data management, in particular in coding with different languages (R, Python). Several months of the project have been dedicated to extract historical patent data and clean them. On the one side the fellow has worked on building an historical dataset of migrant inventors, on the other side has explored new opportunities to link it with US census data.
These efforts have produced a dataset on migrant inventors, which has been used to carry out empirical research on the link between migration and innovation (see Diodato, Morrison, Petralia, 2021; Campo, Mendola, Morrison and Ottaviano, 2020).
The scientific results of the project has been disseminated in a number of ways. So far Gotam has produced 4 main outputs which have taken the form of scientific articles published in international peer reviewed journals.
Below a list of already published (and accepted) works:
- Diodato, D., Morrison, A. and S. Petralia, (2021) “Migration and invention in the age of mass migration”, Journal of Economic Geography https://doi-org/10.1093/jeg/lbab032
- Ernest Miguelez & Andrea Morrison, 2021. "Migrant Inventors as Agents of Technological"," IREA Working Papers 202114, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Jul 2021 https://ideas.repec.org/p/ira/wpaper/202114.html , accepted in Journal of Technology Transfer
- Breschi, S., Lawson, C., Lissoni, F., Morrison, A., & Salter, A. (2020). “STEM migration, research, and innovation”. Research Policy, 49(9).https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2020.104070
- Campo F., M. Mendola, A. Morrison, G. Ottaviano (2020) “Cultural Diversity and Immigrant Inventors in the Age of Mass Migration”, CEPR DP 4662-159248446. R&R Journal of the European Economic cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=14916 accepted in the Journal of the European Economic Association
The work conducted during the project has been widely disseminated as follows:
- the fellow organised special sessions on the topic of Migration and Innovation at the Geography of Innovation Conference in Stavanger January 2020.
- The scientific findings of the project were presented at several conferences and workshops: Aisre in L’Aquila 2020, Geography of Innovation in Stavanger 2020; Utrecht University 2020;
- the fellow organised a GOTAM workshop with the participation of prestigious international keynote speakers on 18 May 2020 (online due to the pandemic situation).
- the fellow co-organised a workshop titled “Refugees’ crisis: economic and social impacts” for a wider audience of policy makers at the European Week of Regions and Cities (13 October 2020) (online due to the pandemic situation).
- the fellow presented the project at the Researchers’ Night (MeetMeTonight) in Milan, 27 September 2019, to a general audience of families, college students and ordinary people.
- the project has promoted a wide ranging initiative in partnership with other universities and national funding agencies titled “Migration, Globalization and the Knowledge Economy and Innovation” (www.tkc-anr.eu/index.php/series-organisers/).