Research Project at the Centre
Lessons from innovation systems: Increased (global) cooperation potential through the application of diffusion principles
According to the World Economic Forum (2010), “The World is facing a paradox. It has become increasingly interdependent, but governments and international organizations are becoming less capable of addressing global issues as large parts of national populations are not yet ready to accept the consequences of policies which must be pursued in the global public interest.”
Thus, there seem to be gaps between the goals upon which negotiators agree on a global level and the degrees of implementation reached in the negotiators' home countries. How can these implementation gaps be explained? And how can new scientific insights help to close or at least bridge them?
Bettina Burger-Menzel builds on her previous work on incentive systems for creativity and diffusion in innovation systems.
Effective global cooperation needs that people are willing and capable to cooperate over time and to behaviorally change in a sustainable manner. Based on first research results, which discussed the cognitive self and its motivational process, this part of the research looks at what enables such an individual to practice and stimulate learning and adaptation within networks and scale up systemig change, not only top down but also bottom up. Actors, who are relevant for the negotiation and implementation of global cooperation, are not only described through their cognitive features but also through their positions, roles and needs within peer-group and agent networks. As a result, effective policy formulation needs to be checked against intra- and inter-diffusion patterns of groups and networks.This includes ICT-driven changes such as open communities or platforms, which allow individuals and organizations to develop their own hubs for social networking.