Engineering Knowledge Networks

Fostering Knowledge and Productive Capability Circulation Across the Americas

The international mobility of engineers, scientists, and professionals plays a critical role in innovation, technology transfer, and regional competitiveness.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the international movement of highly skilled talent has often been interpreted as a loss of human capital. However, aligned with Professor Ricardo Hausmann’s work and the Harvard Growth Lab’s Economic Complexity and Productive Know-how framework, this initiative reframes talent mobility as a process of knowledge circulation, capability accumulation, and productive diversification.

Through LACCEI and the Harvard Growth Lab, this initiative promotes a coordinated, data-driven effort to analyze engineering talent mobility, strengthen academic and professional knowledge networks, and support universities as key actors in building productive capabilities across the Americas.

OBJECTIVES

Reframe engineering talent mobility as a driver of knowledge circulation and productive capability building.
Strengthen transnational academic and research networks in engineering and related fields.
Generate scientific, data-driven evidence on talent flows and knowledge diffusion.
Support universities and countries in developing institutional strategies to engage globally mobile talent.

ACTIONS

A. Academic & Professional Trajectories Mapping:

To collect and systematize information on academic and professional trajectories of engineers from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Methodology

ORCID-enabled web form distributed through the LACCEI network
Integration with OpenAlex and institutional repositories
Analysis of:
- career trajectories
- collaboration networks
- talent circulation patterns

Expected Outcomes

Data visualizations of engineering talent circulation corridors
Evidence on how mobile researchers contribute to local productive capabilities
Basis for joint publications and institutional strategies

B. Engineering Talent Mobility & Knowledge Networks Session (LACCEI 2026 – Chile)

Duration: 2 hours
Format: Academic panel (English–Spanish)
Date: Tuesday, July 14
Time: 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Attendance: By personalized invitation only (maximum capacity: 40 participants)
- Please complete the web form: https://forms.gle/HLBsRh2DME1yMtkv5
More information: info@laccei.org

Focus

Engineers and researchers with international academic and professional trajectories
Institutional integration and contribution to innovation ecosystems
Regional, technical, non-political framing

Additional Component

Long-term analysis of career development and knowledge reintegration

C. Knowledge Network & Author Traceability Integration:

To align author and researcher traceability tools developed by the Harvard Growth Lab with LACCEI’s trajectory-mapping initiative.

Actions:

Interoperability between LACCEI–ORCID datasets and Growth Lab tools
Analysis of:
- knowledge diffusion
- collaboration intensity
- scientific productivity
Shared data governance and ethics framework, strictly academic and non-political