Dr Caetano C. R. Penna

Dr Caetano Penna is Director of Strategic Studies in Science, Technology and Innovation at Brazil’s Centre for Strategic Studies and Management (CGEE), where he co-leads a team of 50 researchers. He is a Visiting Scholar at TU Delft’s Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, where he previously served as a tenured Assistant Professor, and a Member of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) Global Industrial Strategy Group. He was formerly an Independent Expert for the European Commission’s Mutual Learning Exercise on the implementation of mission-oriented innovation policies.

His expertise spans the economics of science, technology, and innovation; industrial and innovation policies with a focus on mission-oriented approaches; sustainable development and innovation financing; and the political economy and geopolitics of technological change. He has extensive experience advising government agencies, multilateral organisations, and industry associations on innovation policy and sustainable development financing.

Previously, Dr Penna held positions as a tenured Adjunct Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s Institute of Economics and as Senior Researcher in Global Sustainability Transitions at Utrecht University’s Centre for Global Challenges. He has also collaborated with leading institutions, including the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex and the Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance at TalTech.

Dr Penna holds a PhD in Science and Technology Policy from the University of Sussex, an MA in Technology Governance from TalTech (Estonia), and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from UFRJ (Brazil). He is a member of the Mission-Oriented Policies Observatory (MIPO), the Sustainability Transitions Research Network (STRN), and the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC).

His academic work has been published in leading journals, including Research Policy, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, and Economic Policy Reform, and he has contributed to major policy initiatives in Latin America and Europe focused on mission-oriented and transformative innovation approaches.