On December 2-3 we will be convening an international ‘brainstorming’ workshop on the cultural economy of open innovation. The event will be held jointly at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Spain’s School for Industrial Organisation (Escuela de Organización Industrial, EOI). Admission is free.

The language and practices of open innovation have taken hold of the imagination of urban life in the early 21st century. From the rise of ‘free software’ in the mid 1990s to the current adoption and promotion of ‘free culture’ in places and contexts as varied as public administration, national systems of innovation, urban planning or user-centred and local community initiatives, the imaginary of ‘openness’ is pervading social life. In this light, open innovation has transubstantiated from an original techno-economic concept to a wholesale sociological paradigm: ‘openness’ as a self-explanatory and emerging figure of the social.

The seminar inaugurates a three-year research project at the Spanish National Research Council which aims to study from a critical and interdisciplinary perspective the current emergence of openness as a figure of, and configurative framework for, the socio-economic structure of our contemporary. We want to study the cultural economy of openness as a new sociological paradigm: What contexts and processes legitimate and enable the circulation of openness as a cultural category across organisations, institutions and communities?

Here is the list of speakers and programme:

Brian Boyer, Helsinki Design Lab
Anita Chan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Alberto Corsín Jiménez, Spanish National Research Council, CSIC
José Luis de Vicente, Elástico, Barcelona
Stephen Flowers, CENTRIM, Brighton
Lars Frederiksen, Aarhus University
Juan Freire, EOI & Universidad de La Coruña
Adam Greenfield, managing director, Urbanscale
Penny Harvey, University of Manchester
Drew Hemment, FutureEverything
Kararina Larsen, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Celia Lury, Goldsmiths College, University of London
Dawn Nafus, Intel Labs, Portland
Mike Pryke, Open University
Tiago Saraiva, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon

THURSDAY 2 DECEMBER
Venue: Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, C/ Albasanz 26-28. 28037 Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, C/ Albasanz 26-28. Madrid

INTRODUCTION
10:00am. The cultural economy of open innovation – introductory remarks. Alberto Corsín Jiménez, Juan Freire, Penny Harvey and Tiago Saraiva

11:00-11:30am. Coffee break

SESSION 1: OPEN ECONOMY
11:30-11:50. Lars Frederiksen
11:50-12:10. Debate
12:10-12:30. Stephen Flowers
12:30-12:50. Debate
12:50-13:10. Katarina Larsen
13:10-13:30. Debate
13.30-15:30. Lunch

SESSION 2: OPEN TOPOLOGIES
15:30-15:50. Celia Lury
15:50-16:10. Debate
16:10-16:30. Mike Pryke
16:30-16:50. Debate
16:50-17:10. Anita Chan
17:10-17:30. Debate
18:00. Closure

FRIDAY 3 DECEMBER
Venue: Campus EOI Madrid. Avda. Gregorio del Amo, 6. 28040 Madrid

SESSION 3: OPEN MEDIA
10:00-10:20. Adam Greenfield
10:20-10:40. Debate
10:40-11:00. Drew Hemment
11:00-11:20. Debate
11.20-11:50. Pausa
11.50-12:10. José Luis de Vicente
12:10-12:30. Debate
12:30-12:50. Bryan Boyer
12:50-13:10. Debate
13:10-13:30. Dawn Nafus
13:30-13:50 Debate
13:50-15.30 Lunch
15:30-17:00. General debate and closure.