IHEM External Speaker Prof. Dr. Sebastian Pfotenhauer (TUM): public ZOOM access

Title:

Innovation and culture: narratives, directionality, and "conservative innovation" in Bavaria

Abstract: 

In this paper, we explore how innovation interacts with culture - or, more specifically, local innovation initiatives align their goals, meanings, material organization, and actor constellations with local identities, socio-economic legacies, and unique political constellations through the lens of we call "regional innovation cultures." We show how Bavaria enacts a "conservative innovation culture", where innovation is framed as a way to preserve socio-economic orders rather than disrupt them, and where political and economic incumbents forcefully shape and absorb emerging niche activities and tend to sideline alternative visions and voices for innovation. Across three sectors - space, agriculture, automotive - we show how culture serves as a framing device to legitimize innovation primarily as an extension of existing social orders; conversely, innovation serves as a vehicle to reinforce dominant ideas of the public good. Through the lens of culture, innovation ceases to be primarily a source of social change and disruption, but can also be understood as a mode of socio-cultural reproduction subject to tentative, constrained experimentation. The paper adds to a growing body of scholarship in STS, innovation policy and geography has increasingly embraced "situated" perspectives to better account for both how culture matters for innovation in diverse settings and how to deal with innovation's growing socio-economic inequalities and conflicts.

Organic:

Sebastian Pfotenhauer is Carl von Linde Professor of Innovation Research at Technical University of Munich. As an STS and innovation policy scholar, he studies innovation cultures, the inequalities and political economies of innovation, the governance of emerging technologies, and responsible innovation practices. Sebastian currently serves as coordinator of the Munich Cluster for the Future of Mobility in Metropolitan Regions (M Cube), a EUR 50 Million flagship initiative on sustainable mobility innovation funded by the German government. He was also the coordinator of the EU-Horizon2020 project SCALINGS ("Scaling up co-creation: Avenues and Limits for Integrating Society in Science and Innovation") - a EUR 4 Million European investigating use of new collaborative innovation formats such as living labs and pre-commercial procurement in robotics, autonomous driving, and urban energy systems. At TUM, he serves as academic director for the TUM Master's program RESET ("Responsibility in Science, Engineering and Technology") and as Deputy Head of the STS Department. Before joining TU Munich, he was a research scientist and lecturer with the MIT Technology & Policy Program as well as a fellow at the Harvard Program on Science, Technology and Society. His work has appeared, among other outlets, in Social Studies of Science, Research Policy, Nature, Science Technology & Human Values, the OECD Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook and many newspapers. He currently serves as Head of the Advisory Board for the Technology in Dialog section of the Association of German Engineers (VDI) and regularly serves as consultant to governments and international organizations.

If you would like to attend, please use the following Zoom dial-in info:

https://tum-conf.zoom.us/j/63062412184

Meeting ID: 630 6241 2184
Code: 536634