Catching Up Along the Global Value Chains

The Institute of Baltic Studies is part of the CatChain, a major 4-year research programme led by ICRIOS in Bocconi University.

The program aims to give solid scientific answers to the question of whether entering global value chains either by sponsoring one large national firm or a set of small and dynamic enterprises, with a special focus on the challenges faced by small and medium enterprises. The project bridges different threads of research, since it considers the catching-up framework, the global value chains literature and the role of business models in addition to topics related to entry, learning and upgrading strategies in fostering a process of country-level catching-up in distinct sectors.

“The outcome of the project will be the definition of policy tools and frameworks to support effective policy-making actions in the implementation of research and innovation regarding smart specialization strategies, with respect to the new agenda of Europe 2020 and mainly for low-income EU countries”, says Prof. Franco Malerba, coordinator of the program.

CatChain involves 12 international partners based in Europe and and beyond (India, Brazil, Costa Rica, Malaysia, South Africa, Republic of Korea) to investigate how to promote catch-up processes at country level, based on different sectoral perspectives.

The Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions program of the European Commission supports this project with 1.6 million euros.

More information can be found on CatChain webpage: http://catchain.eu/