This project explores how knowledge accumulation occurred and how it was transformed by learning into technological innovation in Chile and Norway. Chile and Norway are closely similar in industrial structure and geophysical conditions, yet have had different development trajectories. The questions of why and how Chile and Norway have developed so differently are explored through a comparative empirical analysis of similar types of knowledge organisations that were directly involved in developing knowledge for mining in the two countries. These were notably formal and practical education, industrial societies and exhibitions, laboratories and research centres. Together with mining companies, these organisations interacted with each other with the aim of learning and accumulating knowledge, developing technological capabilities and continuously adopting more efficient technology. Using primary sources in the form of written documents, the focus of the analysis is 1870 to 1940, the period leading up to the economic gap between the two economies.