The 'Stirling School' of Economics Conference
Mon, 18 May
|Stirling University
Innovation is the outcome of our imagination and invention, within the firm and within academic disciplines. It is an evolutionary process of adaptation, creating new possibilities and, in turn, new adaptations.


Date & Location
18 May 2020, 10:00 – 17:00
Stirling University, Stirling University, Stirling University, Stirling FK9 4LR, UK
About the Event
Innovation is the outcome of our imagination and invention, within the firm and within academic disciplines. It is an evolutionary process of adaptation, creating new possibilities and, in turn, new adaptations. The Stirling School is the name given to a group of distinguished economists at the University of Stirling in the early 1980s who explored the nature and social consequences of this unpredictable process of innovation. Their investigation into knowledge formation was applied not only to the firm and its organization, but also to the field of economics itself. Their insights grew from unique interdisciplinary teaching at the university and their research has reached far beyond economics. This is a stark contrast to modern economics where innovation is assumed to happen from the outside and where the study of method is heavily constrained. Our conference is a celebration of the Stirling School to put innovation back in the heart of our economic and social system.
Keynote Speakers:
Sheila Dow:
Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Stirling, Scotland, Adjunct Professor of Economics at the University of Victoria, Canada, and a member of the Academic Council of INET. Her main academic focus is on raising methodological awareness in the fields of macroeconomics, money and banking, and the history of economic thought (especially Hume, Smith and Keynes). While her career has primarily been in academia, she has held positions with the Bank of England and the Government of Manitoba, and as special advisor on monetary policy to the UK Treasury Select Committee.
P. E. Earl:
Specialises in business economics, consumer research and economic method, with an interest in the impact of psychological factors and problems of information and knowledge on decision-making.
His approach blends elements from Austrian Economics, Behavioral Economics, Evolutionary Economics, Institutional Economics and Post Keynesian Economics. He has served as co-editor of the Journal of Economic Psychology and is a founding member of the editorial boards of Review of Political Economy and Marketing Theory. He is the author or editor of sixteen books and numerous articles and book chapters.
Alan Kirman:
Chief Advisor to the New Approaches to Economic Challenges (NAEC), OECD. Alan is professor emeritus at the Aix-Marseille University and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He has been professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University, the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Warwick University, and the European University Institute in Florence. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society and the European Economic Association and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.