As members of the ROSI group, we are committed to advancing research on open social innovation and exploring its potential to address social challenges.
At the recent ROSI meeting, we were fortunate to have two insightful presentations from Eric Von Hippel and Anne-Laure Fayard. Eric shared his research strategy and planning advice, as well as his motivation for studying open user innovation. As a child accompanying his father, a professor at MIT, Eric was fascinated by the tools designed by scientists in the labs he visited.
Anne-Laure’s presentation focused on her long-term involvement with OpenIDEO and her research on open social innovation, which she defined as a form of collaborative innovation that goes beyond crowdsourcing contests. She shared key learnings from her empirical, theoretical, and methodological research on this topic.
These presentations sparked a lively conversation among us about the potential of lead users’ innovation in addressing complex social challenges, such as houselessness. We also delved into the concept of social innovation and its similarities and differences from innovation more broadly.
Lastly, we discussed the role of researchers in open innovation challenges, whether as participants or organizers, and the importance of their engagement in these initiatives.
