The JRC Lunchtime Lecture Economic Fitness and Complexity took place on Friday 22 June 2018 in the CDMA Atrium at 13:00, Brussels.
The Fitness Method is a novel approach to analyse and forecast economic development based on the complexity and dynamics of products, technologies and knowledge. Unlike traditional models, the Fitness Method uses bottom-up algorithmic approaches to big data analysis which are scientific and testable without arbitrary parameters. These lead to discover hidden links describing economics as an evolutionary process of interconnected ecosystems and actors. Further, the Fitness Method uses a new approach to the dynamics of the network characteristics over time allowing for what-if scenarios, disruptive events and future projections. These enable the Fitness Method to easily scale into technological and knowledge-related developments in terms of global to regional level, dynamics of specific knowledge and technologies and variations of these in time. According to a recent report by Bloomberg: The new Fitness method, “systematically outperforms standard methods, despite requiring much less data”.
Current policy developments point towards a more integrated approach to policy support activities like those characteristic for the JRC. The Fitness Method may integrate these analytical capacities in a structured fashion and add substantial analytical potential over the medium term.
On 22 June 2018, the JRC has the honour to host Prof. Luciano Pietronero for a lunchtime session. Prof. Pietronero is an Italian physicist and full professor at the department of Physics at the Sapienza University of Rome and founder and former Director of the Institute of Complex Systems of the National Research Council of Italy. He is a leading world expert in Economic Fitness and Complexity, unfolding its potential in the field of competitiveness and innovation and currently deploying it with the World Bank. He is the author of more than 400 papers in leading scientific journals, and he has been awarded the Enrico Fermi Prize, highest award of the Italian Physical Society, in 2008.