Rainer Kattel (born 20 March 1974) is an Estonian academic and science administrator; he is an expert on innovation as well as political philosophy.
Kattel was born in Tartu, Estonia, and attended the University of Tartu and, for several years, the University of Marburg, Germany, on a DAAD scholarship. He obtained a BA in a specially-designed major, Political Philosophy, an MA in Classics, and a Ph.D. in Public Administration, all with the highest distinction, "summa cum laude" or equivalent. After some research positions at the University of Tartu, he was elected, in 2002, aged 28, to a full professorship and chair in Public Management and European Studies at Tallinn University of Technology. Since 2004, he is also the Head of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. In 2007, he was elected "Faculty Member of the Year".
Kattel is one of the main protagonists of the Estonian innovation strategy and policy (especially as concerns Biotechnology and ICT); he is a member of the Innovation Policy Council, Research and Development Council of the Republic of Estonia, since June 2003, as well as a member of the Estonian Biotechnology Expert Group of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Internationally, he has worked mostly as a consultant for the UNDP (e.g. national development plans of Moldova and Kazakhstan). Between 2002 and 2006, Kattel was also Senior Research Fellow at Estonia’s leading public policy think-tank, PRAXIS. Especially his critical regular opinion pieces in the national daily, Eesti Päevaleht, have gained him a general national audience as well.
Kattel forms the executive board of The Other Canon, a center and network for heterodox economics research, along with co-founder Wolfgang Drechsler and main founder and executive chairman Erik Reinert.