The Nobel Prize in Economics 2025 has awarded Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt for explaining how innovation drives sustained growth. Their pioneering research - certainly worthy of the award sheds important light on the factors that contribute to the development of technology and knowledge. While essential, these two factors do not exhaust the concept of development. development in a holistic sense also requires decent work , strong institutions (as pointed out by Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson, last year's Nobel laureates) and an ethical orientation that puts people at the center.

For decades, development was measured almost exclusively in economic terms: more growth equaled more welfare. Today, this vision is insufficient. Climate crises, geopolitical tensions and growing inequalities are forcing us to rethink what we mean by progress and how to achieve it.

In recent decades, the concept has been broadened to include essential dimensions of human life: health, Education, democratic institutions and respect for the environment. The idea of sustainable development has marked this evolution, in parallel with the notion of integral human development , which places human dignity at the center and seeks to articulate these dimensions in a coherent manner.

However, the current context calls for an update this reflection. The war in Ukraine, geopolitical fragmentation, population aging and the emergence of artificial intelligence are creating new conditions that can accelerate or slow down development, both in advanced countries and in more vulnerable regions.

The first issue is to review the very idea of sustainable development and its limits in a changing world. Climate change, for example, has particularly dramatic effects on the least developed countries. Meeting this challenge requires transforming our societies to make them more resilient, through mitigation and adaptation strategies that combine technological innovation with ambitious public policies and deep international cooperation.

But the challenges are not only environmental. Democracies face growing internal and external pressures, while geopolitical skill limits the scope for global action. International tensions complicate the coordination needed to achieve common goals, such as the Sustainable development Goals.

If we want to understand development in the 21st century, we must look again at work. Not only as an economic driver, but as a central dimension of staff and social fulfillment. work structures communities, gives meaning to the lives of millions of people and contributes to social cohesion.

In this field, artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the landscape. While it promises significant productivity gains, it also raises crucial questions: how will its benefits be shared? Which jobs will disappear and which will emerge? How to train new generations for a constantly changing labor market?

Integrating these technological innovations into a broader vision of development implies ensuring that productivity is not achieved at the expense of human dignity and that its benefits do not remain in the hands of only a few. Technology must be an ally of human flourishing, not a factor of exclusion.

development depends on individuals and businesses, but it also requires strong institutions and well-articulated markets that channel innovation towards shared goals. Access to housing, Education, health and care, as well as the absence of conflict, are necessary elements for this development. Likewise, the emergence of new digital and green markets offers unprecedented opportunities, but also requires regulatory frameworks that guarantee fair skill and protection of rights.

Therefore, any serious reflection on development must include an ethical framework . It is not enough to grow: it is necessary to ask ourselves for what and for whom we grow. Sustainable development must include an integral human purpose , both at staff and collective level.

These debates will be at the heart of the international lecture "The Roads to Development: Work, Markets and Institutions", which will bring together international experts at the University of Navarra to rethink the conditions of development today. Beyond diagnoses, the goal is to generate an interdisciplinary dialogue that will help to articulate concrete paths towards fairer and more sustainable progress.

The world is changing at an unexpected speed. The international order and multilateralism established after World War II are dissolving, giving rise to a new wave of protectionism, the division of the world into blocs and new wars - sometimes hybrid wars - between countries. Democracy, even in the most developed nations, is going through a crisis marked by the proliferation of populist parties, growing political polarization and constant attacks by the political powers on the independence of the judiciary. New technologies and artificial intelligences offer incredible opportunities, but also enormous risks, many of them as yet unknown to humanity. In these times of geopolitical, technological and climatic uncertainty, we need a richer and more humane vision, one that puts staff and inter-country solidarity, work, dignity and global cooperation at the center. Only then will we be able to build a future that truly deserves to be called "development".