Cooperation Networks and Economic Development: Cuba’s High-tech Potential

For most Western audiences, Cuba is a touristic paradise stuck in time and virtually detached from world technology networks by the US embargo – anything but a hub of industrial innovation and high value-added biotechnology.

However, a closer look reveals more subtle but equally powerful stories that challenge the homogenizing assumptions of conventional economics and open up scope for more sophisticated reflections on Cuban economy and industry. From this kind of enquiry emerges the case of the internationally respected Cuban biotech industry as the most successful case of science and technology policy in the country’s economic history.

The book takes an interdisciplinary approach, exploring issues such as interdependency, purpose and history as natural constituencies of the innovation process. It also examines the dynamic and crucial role played by the state in the formation of innovative business enterprises. This book will be of interest to academic researchers in the fields of innovation and economic development.

Andrés Cárdenas O´Farrill received his first economics degree at the University of Havana. He started his career as an economist by working at the Cuban Ministry for Economy, where he became interested in the world of renewable energy. He gained his second economics degree at the University of Leipzig and his PhD at the University of Bremen. He is currently a Research Associate of the Academic–Industry Research Network – theAIRnet.