Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas UNAM

What Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas UNAM does

The Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas (IIEc) is a research institute within the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico's largest public university. It operates as a decentralized public organism of the Mexican federal government, focused on economic research with particular emphasis on Mexican and Latin American macroeconomic, fiscal, industrial, development, and trade economics. The institute is organized across 17 specialized research units and is led by Director Dr. Armando Sánchez Vargas. It has an approximate headcount of 49 staff and is headquartered at the Ciudad de la Investigación en Humanidades, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City.

The institute's primary digital asset is RU-Económicas (Repositorio Universitario de Económicas), an open-access institutional repository launched in 2011 and built on EPrints 3.3.15, open-source software developed at the University of Southampton. The repository hosts over 2,495 documents including the peer-reviewed journal Momento Económico (426+ articles dating to 1984), 1,290 radio program episodes, television programs, working papers, bulletins, and the OLAG geopolitics observatory. It supports OAI-PMH metadata harvesting, JEL classification browsing across 21 economic subject areas covering 5,322 classified items, and multi-format export (Dublin Core, BibTeX, JSON, METS, RDF variants, etc.). The platform is part of the RAD UNAM digital repository network and hosts publications from affiliated networks including CLACSO and REDEFFIM.

The institute operates as a non-profit academic entity with no commercial revenue stream. All content is freely accessible to the public, with funding flowing through UNAM's public education budget. Its served audiences include academic researchers, policy makers, graduate students, and members of collaborating research networks. There are no disclosed revenue figures, no private investment, and no commercial pricing model.

Name

Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas UNAM

Legal name

Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas (IIEc), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)

Website

https://ru.iiec.unam.mx

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

The Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas (IIEc) is a public research institute within UNAM that operates RU-Económicas, an open-access digital repository of Mexican and Latin American economic research publications, journals, and multimedia content.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Academic Economic Research Publications

NAICS

Administration of Economic Programs (9261), Public Administration (92)

SIC

Miscellaneous Publishing (2741)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYBPAHALAD

Economic & Macroeconomic Research

Business & Public Services/Professional Services (Legal, Accounting, Consulting)/Research, Analytics & Expert Services

SECONDARYBPADAMAJ

Economic Research, Statistics & Policy Advisory

Business & Public Services/International Organizations & Development/International Trade & Economic Development

SECONDARYMPAJABAG

Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access Academic Publishing

Media, Entertainment & Sports/Publishing (Books, News, Magazines)/Educational & Academic Publishing (Textbooks, Scholarly, STM)

SECONDARYEDAFACAJ

Open Educational Resources (OER) & Curriculum Repositories

Education/Education Technology (EdTech) & Digital Learning/Digital Curriculum, Courseware & Interactive Learning Content

Keywords

• Economic research publications
• Open access repository
• Scholarly journal publishing
• Digital academic archive
• Latin American economics

Headquarters

HQ city

Mexico City

HQ country

Mexico

HQ region

Latin America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure, Others

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

The Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas (IIEc) UNAM operates the RU-Económicas digital institutional repository, providing free open access to peer-reviewed academic publications, working papers, journals (Momento Económico), radio and television programs, research bulletins, and network publications (REDEFFIM, OLAG) covering Mexican and Latin American economic research. The repository supports OAI-PMH interoperability and JEL-based classification across 21 economic subject categories and 17 research divisions, serving economists, policy makers, students, and academic institutions globally.

Product overview

RU-Económicas is a digital institutional repository operated by the Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas UNAM. It serves as a comprehensive academic platform containing the institute's scholarly output including the peer-reviewed journal Momento Económico, radio and television programs on economics, research bulletins, working papers from REDEFFIM network, and the OLAG geopolitics observatory. The repository organizes content by divisions (such as Macroeconomic Analysis, Industrial Economics, Urban Economics, Fiscal Economics) and by JEL classification, supporting open access to economic research.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• RU-Económicas (Repositorio Universitario de Económicas) A digital institutional repository operated by IIEc UNAM providing open access to academic publications, working papers, journals, radio programs, TV programs, bulletins, and other scholarly materials in Mexican and Latin American economics, organized by JEL classification and research division.
• Momento Económico A peer-reviewed economic journal covering Mexican and Latin American economics, featuring articles on macroeconomics, finance, labor economics, and development, with 426+ journal articles archived in the repository.
• Programa de Radio Momento Económico Weekly radio program covering economic analysis and current affairs, with 1,290+ episodes available in the digital archive, aimed at disseminating economic research to a broader audience.
• Programa de Televisión Platicando de Economía Television program featuring discussions on economic topics, providing audiovisual dissemination of economic research.
• Boletines (Bulletins) Institutional bulletins including Momento Económico Nueva Época, Coyuntura Económica, Nuestra América XXI (CLACSO), and other serial publications for economic analysis and policy commentary.
• Cuadernos de Investigación Research notebooks and graduate research documents published by the institute, supporting advanced economics scholarship and graduate-level research.
• Red de Economía Fiscal, Financiera y Monetaria (REDEFFIM) A research network focused on fiscal, financial, and monetary economics that produces working papers and collaborative publications on Latin American topics including financialization, crisis analysis, and development economics.
• Observatorio Latinoamericano de Geopolítica (OLAG) A research observatory focused on Latin American geopolitics, producing videos and publications on systemic collapse, capitalism, and global power dynamics, serving as a specialized research division.

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and major.

• Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas is a formal research unit of UNAM. The repository operates within UNAM's digital infrastructure and is part of the Red de Acervos Digitales UNAM (RAD UNAM) network. UNAM provides institutional oversight, funding, and administrative support for the institute's research activities.
• University of Southampton - School of Electronics and Computer SciencecoreTechnology or IntegrationEPrints repository software was developed at the University of Southampton. The IIEc repository runs on EPrints 3.3.15, an open-source platform that enables institutional repository management, OAI-PMH compliance, and metadata standardization. Southampton provides ongoing software development and community support.
• CLACSO (Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe institute hosts CLACSO-affiliated publications including 'Nuestra América XXI' (64 items) and 'Seguridad Social Latinoamericana' (7 items) collections. CLACSO is a major Latin American social sciences research network that collaborates on scholarly publications and research dissemination.
• REDEFFIM (Red de Economía Fiscal, Financiera y Monetaria)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe institute hosts the REDEFFIM network's working paper series with 6 publications. This specialized network focuses on fiscal, financial, and monetary economics research in Latin America, producing collaborative working papers on topics like financialization, crisis analysis, and development economics.
• Red de Acervos Digitales UNAM (RAD UNAM)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe repository is part of the RAD UNAM digital network that connects institutional repositories across UNAM. This network provides shared infrastructure, metadata standards (Dublin Core), technical documentation, and collaborative development guidelines for university digital repositories.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Banco de México (Center for Economic Studies): Mexico's central bank with an extensive economic research division publishing working papers and economic analysis; directly comparable in producing Mexican economic research with open-access distribution.
• CEPAL/ECLAC (UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean): Major UN body producing economic research and policy analysis for Latin America; comparable in scope of regional economic research output and open-access publication model.
• Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE): Mexican public research center specializing in economic and social science research; comparable as a fellow Mexico-based economic research institution producing working papers and policy analysis.
• Redalyc (Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México): Major Latin American open-access scientific journal repository based at a Mexican public university; comparable as a fellow public-university-operated open-access repository for academic research in the region.
• El Colegio de México: Premier Mexican academic and research institution with strong economics programs and publications; comparable in operating academic repositories and producing Mexican economic scholarship.
• ITAM Centro de Investigación Económica: Mexican private university's economics research division producing working papers and economic analysis on Mexico; comparable as a Mexican economic research producer with digital repository.

Broad incumbents

• Social Science Research Network (SSRN): Major international repository for social science working papers including economics; comparable as a digital repository platform hosting economic scholarship with global distribution.
• NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research): Premier U.S. private economic research organization publishing working papers and hosting one of the largest economics repositories; comparable as an established economic research publisher with digital distribution.
• IDEAS/RePEc: Leading global aggregator of economics working papers and research; comparable as a discovery and dissemination platform for economic research, though at significantly larger international scale.

Emerging players

• CLACSO (Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales): Latin American social sciences research network already partnering with IIEc on hosted collections; comparable as a regional research network producing and aggregating social science scholarship across Latin America.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/instituto-de-investigaciones-econ%C3%B3micas-unam

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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