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.

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, and
    • 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.
  • Identification of potential knowledge corridors.

B. Engineering Talent Mobility & Knowledge Networks Session

Focus

  • Engineers and researchers who want to contribute to productive capability building locally or internationally, by connecting innovation ecosystems.
  • Institutional integration and contribution to innovation ecosystems.
  • Regional, technical, non-political framing.

Additional Component

  • Long-term analysis of career development and knowledge reintegration.

Actions:

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

THEMATIC LINES

  1. Talent Circulation and Knowledge Networks in Engineering
  2. Recognition and Certification of Competencies (Blockchain-enabled Credentials)
  3. Human Capital Mobility and Integration in Engineering

GOVERNANCE

  • Coordination, data governance, survey design and implementation: LACCEI.
  • Academic collaborators: Harvard Growth Lab, TAMU & UNAH.
  • Potential partners: OAS/OAS, ECLAC/CEPAL, others coming soon.

PARTICIPATE

Contribute to the Engineering Talent Mobility & Academic Trajectories initiative by completing the online form:

https://forms.gle/HLBsRh2DME1yMtkv5

Coordinator / Contact

Coordinators:

Sub-Coordinators:

  • Homero Murzi, Ph.D. Texas A&M University (TAMU)
  • Fernando Zorto, Ph.D. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (UNAH)

Contact LACCEI:
initiatives@laccei.org (English)
iniciativas@laccei.org (Español)

Partners