Berkeley Policy Institute
The Berkeley Policy Institute (formerly BRG Institute) was founded by Berkeley Research Group, LLC as an independent nonprofit corporation to advance knowledge on policy and management through research, publication, and public engagement.
The institute’s Associate’s Program enables students and professionals to develop and implement, under the guidance of a senior advisor, a research paper or a pro bono consulting project of their choosing, addressing a business, management, or policy issue aligned with the mission of the Institute.
For more information about the Berkeley Policy Institute and its programs, visit the Institute website.
Current Projects
Competition and Competitiveness in the Digital Economy
The Project on Competition and Competitiveness in the Digital Economy seeks to build upon the accomplishments of the Dynamic Competition Initiative in ways including the following:
Mobilizing the network of DCI scholars who share and collaborate on building a vision of innovation-focused competition policies and practices.
Engaging policymakers by involving them in events and programs.
Developing scholarship through a dedicated journal, developing the foundation and governance of the Journal, and organising the launch and first issues. The Journal of Dynamic Competition (JDC) was established in March 2026 and is freely available via open access.
Eira Initiative
The Eira Initiative seeks to inform innovation policy in the biopharmaceutical ecosystem by building an intellectual community committed to evidence-based approaches grounded in a “common sense” appreciation of the practical realities of real-world business environments and the unique technological and regulatory characteristics of the biopharmaceutical market. Innovation policy is understood broadly to encompass intellectual property and other forms of legal exclusivity (including data and marketing exclusivity), antitrust and competition policy, research and development (R&D) tax credits, public research funding, national security and global competitiveness tools, and other policy instruments that impact innovation and commercialization in the biopharmaceutical sector.
Archived Projects
Global Innovation and National Interests
The Global Innovation and National Interests project at the BRG Institute aimed to illuminate the roles of, and propose new directions for, public and private science and engineering (S&E) enterprises. The project was carried out through a series of working papers, an ongoing virtual working group of international experts, and outside publications and media appearances.
Big Tech, Dynamic Competition and Antitrust
Antitrust must come to favor pioneering firms, regardless of size, so long as they remain pioneering and do not artificially suppress the innovative effort of others. This project’s mission was to champion markets and the private enterprise system by articulating the importance of innovation to economic and social prosperity, while building a community of scholars, policymakers, and senior leaders and managers. The project included exploration of issues ranging from mergers to predatory pricing to monopolization in order to create better and more nuanced understanding of “Big Tech”.
Firm Level Capabilities: The Missing Link in South African Industrial Growth Strategy
David Teece and Kieran Brown of the BRG Institute, Phil Alves and Pamela Mondliwa of Berkeley Research Group, and Morris Mthombeni of the Gordon Institute for Business Studies, authored a new whitepaper on firm-level capabilities in South Africa. In the paper, the authors explained how “putting the capabilities of firms and managers front of mind” enables policy makers to “help South African firms grow through innovation and to develop greater abilities to identify and exploit new opportunities."
New Zealand Frontier Firms: A Capabilities-Based Perspective
The New Zealand Productivity Commission requested top international thinkers at the BRG Institute to develop a report explaining how boards with strong dynamic capabilities can help firms innovate and thrive in a challenging and deeply uncertain environment. David Teece and Kieran Brown of the BRG Institute authored the report and acknowledge the contributions of Greg Linden (UC Berkeley) and Phil Alves (Berkeley Research Group) to its development.
Additional Past Projects
