Innovation Management and Sustainability
Head:
Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter
Innovation Management and Sustainability
The Future of Healthcare Challenge 2023
An exciting collaboration with Johnson & Johnson Innovation (JLABS), Vennebroek Academic Services, your university and you!
Are you interested in innovation and sustainability and do you like to develop new ideas? Then take your chance now and develop new product ideas to solve social or ecological problems together with an international and multidisciplinary team!
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New article: Mission Future: Adlershof as "World Leader in Impact Innovation”
Essay by Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter in the Adlershof Journal
The idea of a stronger orientation of the Adlershof Science and Technology Park towards the major challenges of the future has been further specified in recent years. Adlershof and Berlin can become a "World Leader in Impact Innovation" in the future, but this requires even more courage and willingness to break new ground.
In the September/October 2023 issue of the Adlershof Journal, Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter reports in his essay on the topic Mission Future: Adlershof as a "World Leader in Impact Innovation" about the new "Next Level Innovation" of Adlershof and how important identity and innovative strength are for solving the Grand Challenges.
Discourses of the future "Democratisation of Innovation" begins in October
Project focusing on the democratisation of innovation will be funded with up to 120,000€
How can a new culture of innovation be created to find solutions to major societal challenges - such as energy supply, climate change and migration - more quickly? PIN will develop ideas on this question in the coming months in dialogue with the public. The project "Demokratisierung von Innovation” (Democratisation of Innovation) in the programme "Zukunftsdiskurse” (Discourses on the Future) is funded by the Lower Saxony state government with up to 120,000 euros. It has a duration of 15 months.
In the classic economic perspective, innovations come primarily from companies and inventors, while users and consumers are attributed a rather passive role. However, this image has changed in the meantime: "Increasingly, civil society actors are actively participating in the innovation process from non-economic roles, thereby accelerating transformation processes," says PIN director Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter. This is the basic idea behind the democratisation of innovations. The future discourse focuses on the question of how students can initiate and develop sustainability-oriented innovations together with companies.
The events are aimed at students, teachers, university administrators as well as representatives of companies, trade associations, start-up support institutions, civil society initiatives and politics. An opening event with lectures, workshops and panel discussions is planned, as well as a working conference, for the preparation of which interviews with experts will be conducted, and online discourse formats. In a final event, the project team will present an impulse paper and discuss it with all participants.
The "Zukunftsdiskurse” (Discourses on the Future) programme was announced for the fifth time in 2022. It aims to strengthen the role of universities and research institutions as a source of impulses for society. It is aimed at humanities and social science disciplines that take up social debates with their research results and present and discuss them in public events. More information
Resilience Creates Added Value - A Practical Guide
Practical handout published as part of the DBU-funded project "Resilience as an opportunity for sustainable corporate action
The idea of resilience as a service for others ("Resilience-as-a-Service") stimulates new perspectives, opens up entrepreneurial opportunities and creates added value for society. This practical guide is therefore entitled "Resilience as added value".
It is aimed at companies, startups, business associations and funding agencies that want to know what resilience "can do" beyond risk management. This guide introduces the concept of opportunity-oriented resilience and explains how the opportunity perspective can be successfully used for sustainable corporate action, based on company examples and four key corporate task areas (strategic management, sustainability management, innovation management and business model development). In this context, resilience is understood as a fourth sustainability principle that complements the principles of efficiency, consistency and sufficiency.
The guide was developed as part of the DBU-funded PIN project "Resilience as an opportunity for sustainable corporate action", which addresses the question of how products and services can be developed and offered that increase the resilience and sustainability of customers and their organizations, thereby creating sustainable added value.
To download the guide, click on the thumbnail or here
Further information on the project „Resilience as an opportunity for sustainable corporate action.”
New article: Start-up support at the UOL
The role of the GIZ and PIN at the University of Oldenburg
Combining economic and ecological thinking in a targeted way right from the start-up: A new article by the University of Oldenburg highlights how the Founding and Innovation Center (GIZ) and the extraordinary professorship for Innovation Management and Sustainability (PIN) pursue this goal. It praises the university's sustainability efforts as well as highlighting important PIN projects, methods and modules.
For example, reference is made to the PIN project Sustainability4All, which develops measures to integrate climate protection and sustainability into newly founded companies at an early stage. The module Sustainable Venturing, which has been running since 2009, is also highlighted, in which students develop sustainable business ideas together with regional start-ups or established companies.
This interlinking of research, teaching and start-up consultancy is a pioneering approach – and a recipe for success. "It is more important than ever that we, as a university, support start-ups at all levels in matters of sustainability. After all, these companies have the potential to become key players on the path to a truly challenging transformation which we as a society must accomplish," stresses PIN-Leader Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter.
Journal of Cleaner Production – Special Issue
Assessing and forecasting the sustainability impact of new ventures: Theories, methods and empirical evidence
The Journal of Cleaner Production has now published a special issue on assessing and forecasting the impact of new ventures on sustainability. PIN Director Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter is the corresponding author as well as managing guest editor.
Edited by Klaus Fichter, Florian Lüdeke-Freund, Stefan Schaltegger, Simon Schillebeeckx
Start-ups are key actors in environmental innovation. Thus, the sustainability impact of young ventures is central to both cleaner production and entrepreneurship research. As such, we should examine “how, by whom, and with what effects opportunities to create future goods and services are discovered, evaluated, and exploited”.
Latest Publications
Fichter, K., Lüdeke-Freund, F., Schaltegger, S., & Schillebeeckx, S. J. (2022). Sustainability impact assessment of new ventures: An emerging field of research. Journal of Cleaner Production, 384 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.135452
K. Fichter und K. Hurrelmann, "Sustainability-oriented business incubation: framing and supporting sustainable entrepreneurship," in Handbook of Research on Business and Technology Incubation and Acceleration, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021, pp. 478-495. doi.org/10.4337/9781788974783.00038
Fichter, K. & Tiemann, I. (2020): Impacts of promoting sustainable entrepreneurship in generic business plan competitions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 267 (2020). doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.122076
Wagner, M., Schaltegger, S., Hansen, E.G.; Fichter, K. (2019). University-linked programmes for sustainable entrepreneurship and regional development: how and with what impact? Small Business Economics (2019). doi.org/10.1007/s11187-019-00280-4
Volkmann, C., Fichter, K., Klofsten, M. et al. (2019). Sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems: an emerging field of research. Small Business Economics (2019). doi.org/10.1007/s11187-019-00253-7
Clausen, J. & Fichter, K. (2019). The diffusion of environmental product and service innovations: Driving and inhibiting factors. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 31 (2019), 64-95. doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2019.01.003
Tiemann, I.; Fichter, K. & Geier, J. (2018). University support systems for sustainable entrepreneurship: insights from explorative case studies. in: International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing. Vol. 10, No. 2, 2018; DOI: 10.1504/IJEV.2018.090983
Breuer, H.; Fichter, K.; Lüdeke-Freund, F. & Tiemann, I. (2018). Sustainability-oriented Business Model Development: Principles, Criteria, and Tools. in: International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing. Vol. 10, No. 2, 2018; DOI: 10.1504/IJEV.2018.10008388
K. Fichter & I. Tiemann (2017): Factors influencing university support for sustainable entrepreneurship: Insights from explorative case studies. in: Journal of Cleaner Production, 175 (2018), 512 - 524.
N. Bank, K. Fichter & M. Klofsten (2017): Sustainability-profiled incubators and securing the inflow of tenants - the case of Green Garage Berlin. in: Journal of Cleaner Production, 157 (2017), 76-83.
Practice-oriented Publications
- Fichter, K., Hurrelmann, K., Seela, A., Hjelm, O., Larsson, M., Kanda, W., Sundberg, C., Stel, F. (2020). Guidelines for the evaluation of collaborative student-business venturing activities. Oldenburg: Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg.
- Fichter, K., Hurrelmann, K., Seela, A., Hjelm, O., Larsson, M., Kanda, W., Sundberg, C., Stel, F. (2020). Report for Work Package 2: Evaluating leading approaches and tools in collaborative green venturing. Oldenburg: Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg.
Other:
- Hurrelmann, K., Fichter, K. (2020). Sustainability in university start-up support programmes: Practical examples and approaches. Oldenburg: Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg.
- Hurrelmann, K., Fichter, K., Seela, A. (2018). Climate-Challenge: Chancen und Risiken für Geschäftsmodelle in Zeiten des Klimawandels: Ein Trainerleitfaden. Oldenburg: Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg.
- Tiemann, I. and Fichter, K. (2016). Developing business models with the Sustainable Business Canvas: Manual for Conducting Workshops. (Download)
External Project Websites
Scaleup4Sustainability (finished)
Klima-WA? (finished)
TEMPRO (finished)
Netzwerk Innovation & Gründung im Klimawandel (NIK)
HanseKlima (finished)
EkaKorn (finished)