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Senior Research Associate
Name: Bertha Vallejo
Location: 69 Kingsway Ave, Auckland Park, Johannesburg, 2092 Johannesburg Business School
Staff Members
Contact Details:
Tel: 011 559 1808
Email: berthav@uj.ac.za
About Dr Bertha Vallejo
Dr. Bertha Vallejo joined the DST/NRF/Newton Fund Trilateral Chair in Transformative Innovation, the 4IR, and Sustainable Development at the University of Johannesburg in early 2020. During this period, she was appointed as an early-career scholar under an award from Queen Elizabeth Scholars –Open African Innovation Research network (Open AIR) till March 2021. Under the SARChI Chair, Dr. Vallejo has participated as coordinator of research assistants in transformative policy experiments in South Africa (i.e., the Living Catchments Project) guided by the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (TIPC).
Dr. Vallejo is a science and technology policy analyst focusing on innovation studies and the key role that technological changes promoted in the North are having on the development pathways of local economies in the South. She is an associated researcher at the UNU-MERIT in Maastricht, the Netherlands, and a research fellow at the Innovation for Sustainable Development Network (inno4sd.net). Dr. Vallejo’s research interest is in the ongoing processes of adopting industry 4.0 technologies in the Global South and the processes of strengthening local technological capabilities that would allow the South to integrate into the newborn interaction chains.
Dr Vallejo worked for 15 years at Tilburg University (the Netherlands), where she coordinated multiple capacity development projects in the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes Region. These projects shed light on the much-missed connection between capacity development results and the changes needed at the organizational, social, and individual levels.
Dr Vallejo has contributed to and participated in several research initiatives with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – Institute for Water Education (UNESCO-IHE), and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). She has authored journal articles for World Development, the International Journal of Project Management, Development Policy Review, and Sustainability. She is also a reviewer for several journals, including Research Policy, World Development, Sustainability and Technology Forecasting and Social Change.