Herrenhausen Conference "The New Role of the State for the Emergence and Diffusion of Innovation"
February 20-22, 2019
Herrenhausen Palace, Hanover, Germany
Major Challenges ahead: How can governments and state-related actors stimulate innovation and spread its benefits? Experts from various disciplines, fields and countries will discuss the new role of the state at a Herrenhausen Conference on February 20-22, 2019. Travel Grants Available!
The role of the state and of state governments in knowledge societies for the stimulation, regulation and diffusion of innovation has been debated in politics and various social sciences for years, especially in times of economic crisis. Current discussions include the question whether and how state-related actors and agencies can mobilize innovations and drive their diffusion to properly address Grand Societal Challenges and Sustainable Development Goals worldwide: climate and environmental threats, natural resource scarcities, increasing levels of inequality and exclusion and the challenges of the digitalization and robotization of our lives, to name a few.
On this background, the search for a governance scheme most effective in pushing respective innovation and diffusion activities cannot escape the old debate on state versus market or on centralized versus decentralized planning or on autocratic versus democratic decision making. In this context, we also need to reflect on what we mean by state and statehood in the 21st Century as well as new state dimensions such as new publicness, like in the sharing economy. These crucial debates deserve a broader, transdisciplinary platform to account for the various disciplinary viewpoints on the questions at hand.
Therefore, Uwe Cantner (Friedrich Schiller University, Jena), Dirk Fornahl (University of Bremen) and Stefan Kuhlmann (University of Twente) asked researchers worldwide to join the Herrenhausen Conference and present their perspectives to the debate.
Questions of the conference include:
- Has state-driven innovation (policy) positive impacts on welfare and growth?
- What is the role of the state and statehood for innovation vis-à-vis economic and social actors?
- How can governments and innovation policy address societal transitions and grand societal changes?
- How to overcome innovation system lock-in? Is there a role for creative corporatism beyond incumbent stakeholders and new tech giants?
- How can innovation policy be made more inclusive and help to bridge social divides? How to address persistent global inequality?
- Innovation policy for economic and extra-economic Returns: How to master the balance?
The targeted audience includes but is not limited to researchers ranging from economics to regional, political and social sciences as well as policy makers or representatives from economic development agencies or other administrations.
The New Role of the State for the Emergence and Diffusion of Innovation is part of the Herrenhausen Conference Series initiated by the Volkswagen Foundation.
Travel Grants Available: The Volkswagen Foundation offers 30 Travel Grants for PhD students or early Post docs researching on the topics addressed by the conference. The grants include travel expenses to and from Hanover, visa fees (if applicable), as well as accommodation in Hanover during the conference. Successful applicants will get the chance to present their research in poster sessions. The posters will be displayed during the entire conference. The best 10 papers and research ideas will be presented to the audience in lightning talks. Furthermore, the best research paper can win a prize of 1,000 Euro. Application deadline is January 13, 2019.
