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Obituary Richard Nelson (4th May1930 – 28th January 2025)

It is with great sadness that we have to inform you that Richard R. (Dick) Nelson has left us. He passed away peacefully on 28th January 2025. A long and fulfilling life has come to an end, a life characterized by the highest level of scientific achievement, creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, and a broad-based desire for knowledge. Dick has launched a scientific life's work that is unrivalled. Together with Sid Winter and others, he put the concept of evolutionary economics on a solid footing and thus set in motion an intellectual movement and school of thought that deals with economic phenomena from a dynamic and disequilibrium-orientated perspective.

Of course, Dick’s contribution to the discipline is crucial and moreover it is a contribution which since half a century has not yet demonstrated its full impact. But he had an incredible ability to educate (and not only to train) students and young researchers. Dick had this rare ability to mobilize attention and energy towards the most precise and relevant intellectual challenges, not only as a mentor but also and mainly through a deep and intense collaboration. And, almost independently from his contributions to the discipline through publications, his most long-lasting impact is and will be in the long term his influence on the personal intellectual trajectory of many of our colleagues.

Dick Nelson is not only an extra-ordinary teacher, he is also an efficient and remarkable “adviser’. From his participation in the RAND corporation to his more recent collaboration with OECD, we have to remember that he served on the Council of Economic Advisors of the President of the United States, a mythical place for economists, during a mythical period, the 60s. He was also head of an influential program on Science, Technology, and Global Development, at the Columbia Earth Institute, and Professor of International and Public Affairs, Business, and Law, at Columbia University.

Dick joined the International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society at a very early stage and took part in the 1988 conference in Siena for the first time. His ideas and concepts subsequently influenced the development of the Society. This also earned him the honorary presidency of the Schumpeter Society. With his oeuvre, Dick has influenced generations of scientists, accompanied and advised them and was always a great friend to them, with touching warmth and kindness.

We will miss Dick Nelson as a person as much as we will miss him as an intellectual pioneer, source of ideas and advisor. Our world has become a much poorer place. Our deepest sympathy goes to his bereaved family.

In deep mourning

Patrick Llerena (President ISS) and Uwe Cantner (Secretary General ISS)