Freeman projected into the future of innovation and development studies: a contribution to the celebration of Christopher Freeman 100th birthday anniversary

Every scholar, mature or young, need to pay due respect to the proponents of the concepts with which they work, because they have created the essential bricks of the intellectual building he/she aims to contribute at. It may happen that such respect, expressed by referencing determined authors, becomes a sort of ritual: you simply cannot avoid referencing them. Sometimes, the authors in question are referenced not only out of respect, but because they had made a deep impression in those using his/her insights, conjectures, conceptual proposals and empirical findings. Christopher Freeman was one of them. The organizers of this Special Section deeply believe this by their own experience, as students, researchers and, at least as important, as teachers. When we quote Chris Freeman, or when we explain Chris Freeman to our students, we refer to a way to looking into problems that helps understanding them in context. Perhaps these two elements are the key to his potent intellectual presence in innovation and development studies. Chris Freeman provides a powerful and multifaceted focusing device to look into problems and, even being an European scholar, he does not bear ‘the burden of the white man’, being thus recognized as an universal thinker, particularly from us, and for the authors of this Special Section: mature and young scholars of the Global South. We justified the call for contributions to this Special Section through the following text: