TIME-Excellence-Lecture 9th of Nov@13:00

Please join us for a TIME-Excellence-Lecture on Tuesday the 9th of November 2021 at 11:00 London time i.e. 12:00 Brussels time, 13:00 Athens time. The speaker is Gianluca Carnabuci, ESMT Berlin. The title of the talk is "Finding the “adjacent possible”: where recombinant inventions are most likely to occur and who is most likely to discover them".

This webinar is free and open to all. The moderator is Dr. Andreas Panagopoulos. To join us follow this Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/91535594322?pwd=SEhZTHRkZENQYW10WXM0dUk1c1RUUT09

Abstract: Extant innovation research suggests that predicting which new knowledge combinations will be discovered is like ‘finding a needle in the haystack.’ Challenging this view, we examine almost two centuries (1836–2010) of US patent data and demonstrate three key findings. First, nearly all new creative combinations occurred within a particular network configuration (the open 2-path). Second, most such combinations were discovered by inventors with knowledge in a domain adjacent to the combined domains, not in the combined domains themselves. Third, only the new combinations discovered by inventors with adjacent knowledge had an increased likelihood of becoming technological breakthroughs. Our findings extend current theories of recombinant invention, add precision to the notion of “adjacent possible,” and improve our ability to predict where breakthrough inventions will occur.