Migration and Innovation from an historical perspective

Position: Post-doctoral research appointment Institute: Uni. Pavia
Posted on: 01/04/2026 Elapsing! Deadline: 08/05/2026

Scientific-Disciplinary Group

13/ECON-04 - Applied Economics

Description

International migration is an important channel for accessingforeign knowledge. Historical accounts show that migrants havelong served as carriers of knowledge, yet quantitative evidenceremains scant. This project aims to fill this gap by providing acomprehensive quantitative analysis of the geographicaldistribution of immigrants’ inventive activity during the Age ofMass Migration in the US. The project will build new datasetsdrawing on a variety of sources – e.g. historical patent records,census data, and bibliographic information - and leveragingcomputational models (e.g., LLMs). Using these new datasets,the project will reconstruct migrants’ mobility patterns in bothdestination and sending countries, trace their lifelong inventivehistories, and assess their impact on host and origin regions. Todisseminate the findings, the project will organize dedicatedworkshops and special sessions at major conferences.

Funding body

Università di Pavia

Selection process

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The application for admission to the selection procedure (dated and signed),the documents and publications considered useful for the evaluation must be submitted, under penalty of exclusion, electronically, by visiting the following web page: https://pica.cineca.it/unipv/tipologia/idr selecting the Competition Notice you have chosen. In order to register with the system, you must have an email address. Following the guidelines published in the procedure, the applicant must enter all the information required for the application, enclosing all documents in electronic .PDF format. The selection of candidates is carried out on the basis of qualifications and interview, supplemented by a test of knowledge of the foreign language (see Art. 1 par. 1 Call for applications). The public call with detailed attendance and selection rules (Art 4 and 6) can be found at: https://pica.cineca.it/unipv/tipologia/idrThe selections are open to candidates, Italian or foreigner, in possession, on the date of the deadline for submitting applications for the admission to the selection, of a research doctorate (PhD) or equivalent qualification obtained abroad, or, for the sectors concerned, a medical specialization qualification. The educational qualification has to concern the research theme.Further specific assessable qualifications (see Art. 1 par. 1 Call for applications):-Advanced knowledge of programming languages (R, Python)-Advanced knowledge of patent databases-Familiarity with innovation theories and the literature onmigration and innovation-Advanced knowledge of econometric models