Kavita Surana from University of Maryland will give a virtual talk on Wednesday, June 2, 2021 from 3–4 pm (CET).
If you want to join the talk, please send an e-mail to office@csh.ac.at
Abstract:
Clean energy technologies can contribute to emissions reduction and support economies through jobs and growth in new manufacturing industries, however, innovation is still needed to meet long-term climate goals. Policymakers try to simultaneously advance innovation, manufacturing, and deployment of clean energy technologies but, much as in other modern industries, the manufacturing of many clean energy technologies has shifted from Europe, the US, and Japan to emerging economies. The consequences of this shift for the direction of innovation are not well understood.
This talk will discuss the wind energy global value chain, using a novel dataset of the component supplier firms that worked with the 13 largest original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) from 2006-2016. First, we will discuss the global changes in the location of manufacturing in the context of technology complexity, a metric that quantifies the knowledge intensity and difficulty of manufacturing turbine components. Then, we will apply data science and natural language processing methods to analyze the direction of innovation, i.e. the expected payoffs from firms’ patenting activity in the long-term or short-term. Finally, we will quantitatively assess the relationship between the location of manufacturing in the global value chain and the direction of innovation.
About:
Dr. Kavita Surana is an Assistant Research Professor at the Center for Global Sustainability, School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, USA. Her data-driven research focuses on analyzing technology innovation in clean energy and its interactions with public policy and decision-making in private industry. Previously, Dr. Surana was a Research Associate and Postdoctoral Fellow in the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Dr. Surana has worked with the World Bank, ICF International, and the French Alternative and Atomic Energies Commission (CEA), analyzing and advising on a range of issues related to innovation, energy, and climate change. She holds a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble (INP-Grenoble) and CEA, an M.S. in energy storage and conversion materials from Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France, and a B.Sc. in Physics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, India.