BA (Hons) (University of Malta), MA (University of New Orleans) and a PhD (University of the Witwatersrand), all in economics.
Mario Scerri is the Founding Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in African Integration and Innovation located in the Institute for Economic Research on Innovation (IERI) at the Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa. He is a Professor of Economics and a Senior Research Fellow at IERI. He is also a Visiting Senior Researcher in the School of Economics and Business Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is currently an Advisor to AUDA-NEPAD in the African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (ASTII) Programme. He was previously the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Finance at the Tshwane University of Technology.
His area of expertise is the study of systems of innovation from a political economy perspective, with a particular focus on African systems. His current research project is on a rearticulation of the system of innovation approach to economic dynamics specifically to take into account the specific systemic structural conditions of economies in Africa. The viability of African systems of innovation may then be assessed from this perspective.
He is the author of The Evolution of the South African System of Innovation since 1916 (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), the editor of The Emergence of Systems of Innovation in South(ern) Africa: Long Histories and Contemporary Debates (Johannesburg: MISTRA and Real African Publishers, 2016), and the co-editor of three books on the national systems of innovation in the BRICS (New Delhi: Routledge, 2013, 2014) and of the book Measuring Innovation in OECD and non-OECD Countries (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2006). He is also the author of several articles in scientific journals and books chapters, mostly on various aspects of the systems of innovation approach to economic dynamics.
