Course info

PhD course: Design and Innovation Processes and their Staging, 2020 

Description: Content:

While innovation and design are increasingly expected to answer to a broad variety of concerns and depending on the incorporation of knowledge from a diversity of sources, questions are raised as to what kinds of sources, and how they are incorporated in processes of design and innovation. As innovative challenges and conditions are changing with increasing pace these questions cannot just be solved through a singular choice of organization or established guidelines for selecting innovative ideas. Issues of how to stage the scene and circumstances and how to facilitate processes and the involvement of diverse actors in design as well as innovation have increasingly come into focus. Successful design and innovation are seen as the outcome of interactions within a broader network spanning across diverse organizational and societal boundaries and institutions. There is a need to address the design and navigation of new fora and spaces for development where existing frames of understandings may be challenged and new patterns for interactions emerge.

The course takes its departure in the well-described dilemmas between incremental but often path dependent innovative processes within established networks and the quest for the development and design of new innovative, disruptive or breakthrough ideas, product and services facilitated through new networked relations. A range of theories, cases and approaches concerned with the framing, designing and staging of innovative processes, from linear sequential models to complex, dynamic networks of innovation are treated and related to the current work of the participants.

During the course, a dialogue is created between the participants’ projects and a diversity of understandings of the management and staging of design and innovation from organization, institutional theory and sociology of innovation. The idea is to direct inquiry and to stimulate theoretical insights and empirical approaches in the field of design and innovation. The course introduces concepts, which help render relevant phenomena and issues (relationships, dynamics, consequences) in the participants’ projects visible and open to investigation, analysis as well as creative inquiry and exploration. This would, in turn, also help in delineating hypotheses of relevance to the investigation of innovative processes and their staging, and in proposing new directions for research in the field.

The program will cover the following themes:

Challenges in management of innovation and the staging of design and innovative processes

Innovation and design as heterogeneous processes of interaction involving actors, artefacts and knowledge

Innovation and design as journeys characterized by uncertainty, ambiguity and complexity

Innovation between rational analytical, interpretive and performative processes 

Innovation and design as exploitation and exploration 

Innovation as networking, brokering and collaboration in and between organizations

From planning and calculation to social learning and translation of interests

‘Co-creation’ and ‘path creation’ as heterogeneous network building, 

Staging and navigation of temporary spaces for innovation across knowledge boundaries

Part 1 (Takes place at AAU Aalborg):
The first part of the course provides insight and understanding of how theory and practice in innovation and design as process has evolved. Insight is achieved through an overview of classics and recent movements in innovation research, a review of core innovation concepts and fields, as well as dialogue with industrial professionals from organizations leading innovation and design.

Part 2 (Takes place at AAU Copenhagen):
The second part provides insight in innovation and design and their staging based on the latest socio-material approaches to innovation and design. These traditions have emerged as an attempt to develop concepts and approaches enabling to search for and identify key processes and dynamics that might become central to the design of innovation and their staging.

Form

The students should be familiar with basic understandings of innovative processes from innovation process theory and/or science and technology studies (the STS field) on an academic master level.

The program includes teacher presentations, student presentations, professional experiences and company talks as well as dialogue sessions where students will receive feedback on their presentations and projects from fellow students as well as teachers.

As a preparation for the first assembly, participants should prepare a presentation of a problem/solution from their research, which they want to analyze from an innovation process perspective. The presentation can focus on a case and/or a challenging perspective (oral supported with ppt) within the theme of the course (It is important to describe how innovation processes could be a relevant perspective for your activities in order to provide a professional and empirical background for your own reflexive learning.)

Between the first and second assembly participants write a 5-10 pages analysis bringing theory to bear on selected case material of their own choice. These assignments are basis for evaluation and approval of participation. In addition, participants will be asked to fill in a formal evaluation scheme. 

Programme:

Part 1: 

New trends in innovation and design and their staging. Learning from industrial practice and research.

Programme for 24-25 september, 2020

Location: Aalborg University, Rensburggade 14, 9000 Aalborg

Teachers: Associate professor Søren Kerndrup, AAU, SIP; professor Christian Clausen, AAU, BDO; Ole Tangsgaard, rinnovation Consult. 

September 24,  9.30-18.00 

09.30: Registration, Coffee and rolls. 

10.00: Welcome and introduction, Christian Clausen

Introduction to participants, teachers and program

10.30: Innovation perspectives: What characterizes innovative processes and how are processes understood and used in innovation? Søren Kerndrup

Dialogue and discussions            

11.15: Innovation methodology and tools from an intra firm perspective. Ole Tangsgaard, rInnovation Consult

Dialogue and discussion

12.30: Lunch

13.15: Current challenges in innovation management. Experiences from companies, Ole Tangs- gaard, rInnovation Consult.

Dialogue and discussion

14.30 Coffee break

14.00:   Participant presentation of PhD or other project and prepared assignments (approx. 10 min presentation + 15 min. discussion). 

15.15: Innovation, agility and design Søren Kerndrup/ Christian Clausen

17.30: Summing Up: Key lessons seen from a process perspective: How are processes conceptualized and used? Christian Clausen & Søren Kerndrup

18.00 Closing the session

18.30: Going out together?

September 25, 9.00-16.00 

09.00: Innovation, users and interactive spaces across organizations and communities, Christian Clausen  

Dialogue and discussion

10.45 Coffee break

11.05: Participant presentation of PhD or other project and prepared assignments (approx. 10 min presentation + 15 min. discussion). 

Dialogue and discussion

12.15 Lunch

13.00: Innovation inside and across boundaries:  boundary objects and spaces, Søren Kerndrup

Dialogue and discussion

14.30 Coffee break

14.50: Three perspectives on managing Innovation, Christian Clausen. 

16.00 Summing Up: What are the key lessons seen from a process perspective: How are the processes conceptualized and used? Søren Kerndrup/Christian Clausen

How make the asigment for part 2.

16.30: Closing and networking

Part 2: Program for 7-9 December 2020 (Prelinimary)

New processual and social-material theories informing innovation and design processes. 

Location: Aalborg University Copenhagen, A.C. Meyers Vænge 15, 2450 Copenhagen SV.

Teachers: Professor Peter Karnøe, AAU, BDO; associate professor Søren Kerndrup, AAU, SIP; assistant professor Signe Pedersen and professor Christian Clausen, AAU, BDO; assistant professor Jens Dorland , RUC.

December 7, 8.30-17.00

08.30: Welcome to the second assembly at AAU CPH, coffee

Introduction to teachers and programme

10.00: Political and STS perspectives on innovative processes, Christian Clausen

Dialogue and discussion

12.00: Lunch

13.00: Presentation of assignments

Comments from participants and teachers

14.00 Coffee

14.15: Innovative processes as future creation – a design perspective, Søren Kerndrup

Dialogue and discussion

15.45: Discussion of the themes of the day related to the Phd work.

Comments from participants and teachers 

16.45: End of day programme                           

December 8, 9.00-17.00

9.00: Creation of meaning in innovation processes - a design perspective, XX.

Dialogue and discussion

11.00: Coffee

11.15 Presentation of assignments

Comments from participants and teachers

12.15: Lunch

13.30: Actor Network Perspectives on innovation: Path dependencies and path creation, Peter Karnøe

Dialogue and discussion

15.15: Coffee

15.30 Presentation of assignments

Comments from participants and teachers

16.00: Discussion of the themes of the day related to the Phd work.

18.00 End of the Day.

Going out to eat together?

December 9, 9.00-15.00

9.00: Staging design and innovative processes: Arenas, spaces and artefacts,  Signe Pedersen

 Dialogue and discussion.

11.00: Coffee

11.15:  Presentation of assignments 

Comments from participants and teachers

12.15: Lunch

13.00: How are processes conceptualised and used? Staging of Arenas, spaces and artefacts in your work? Christian Clausen

Comments from participants and teachers

14.30: Evaluation

15.30 End of course.

Teachers: Professor Peter Karnøe, AAU, BDO; associate professor Søren Kerndrup, AAU, SIP, assistant professor Signe Pedersen, AAU, BDO; Ole Tangsgaard, rinnovation Consult, assistant professor Jens Doland, RUC, and professor Christian Clausen, AAU, BDO.

ECTS: 5

Time: 24-25 September and 7-9 December 2020

Place September: Aalborg University in Aalborg, 9000 Aalborg
24 September: Rendsburggade 14, room Rbg14 3.329
25 September: Rendsburggade 14, room Rbg14 4.317 

Place December:  Aalborg University in Copenhagen, 2450  Copenhagen SV
7-9 December:  A. C. Meyers Vænge 15, room ACM15 (A) 2.1.009

Number of seats: 20

Deadline: 1 September 2020