From the 26th to the 28th of April, at the Palazzo Feltrinelli (Lake Garda) will take place the second international workshop aims about the exaptation and inverse question-driven innovation on scientific and technological development and the way research and development is organized and funded.
The criteria that inspire the institutions that set the governance for private and public R&D rely on an approach that reach solutions by solving the problems. However, many fundamental breakthroughs in science and technology followed an approach in which the solution precedes the identification of the question, called the inverse question.
The increase of complexity, variety and connectivity of modern societies and economic systems generates new opportunities for inverse question-driven innovation, which allow to reveal new areas of interest, which were not even supposed to exist. Thus, the exaptation – which is the cooption of artifacts (or biological traits) for functions different from the ones they were designed (or selected) for – begins a fundamental mechanism in the modern context of innovation.
During the conference there will be plenary sessions with keynote speakers and paper sessions. The format of the conference aims to generate intense conversations among the attendees: questions, debates, and discussions will be actively encouraged. Indeed, paper sessions will give the opportunity to present (and get feedback on) early-stage work on exaptation and inverse-driven innovation (in particular to young scholars).
Theoretical, empirical and methodological contributions that cover the topic of the “Call for Papers” should be sent by 21 January 21th 2018