We are inviting abstracts for an interdisciplinary conference on
innovation that will be held on 3-4 December 2015 in Paris. The theme
of the conference is “Participating in Innovation, Innovating in
Participation”.
More information on the conference can be found below, and in the
attached call for papers. The deadline for submitting abstracts (max.
1000 words) is June 21.
Feel free to circulate the call.
*Conference theme*
The call for new forms of participation has become common in the
public sphere, promising renewed forms of public engagement, more
efficient industrial processes, and more democratic
decision-making processes. Technological innovation is a particular
case when considering current discourses of participation. It is both
problematised as needing more developed or open forms of
participation, and proposed as a mean for experimenting with original
participatory formats, for example, in: crowdfunding, citizen science,
amateur reviewing/rating, online communities for public debates,
consumer participation in (participatory) product design.
• How should the call for new forms of participation in technological
innovation be understood, in terms of both public policy and the
private sector?
• How are social and economic organisations thereby shaped?
• What does this mean for new processes of innovation?
The second i3 conference “Participating in innovation, innovating in
participation” aims to launch and deepen interdisciplinary discussion
on the forms and effects of modes of participation in technological
innovation. The principal issues that the conference will address are
as follows:
*1. Practices and sociotechnical devices*
Sociotechnical devices are crucial resources for supporting
involvement and participation as interactional accomplishments. These
devices comprise participatory instruments such as public
dialogue mechanisms, web platforms through which users interact with
the content they are interested in, or user-oriented experiments
undertaken by private companies.
• On what bases can these sociotechnical devices be analysed?
• What kinds of infrastructures do they rely on?
• How do these infrastructures become stabilised?
Sociotechnical devices are inscribed in networks of professionals as
well as in institutional landscapes: how can the ecologies they are
embedded in, and partly shape, be accounted for? For example, how can
one analyse the situations where devices of participation are economic
entities circulating in markets, or emerge as topics of public or
private expertise?
Analysis of sociotechnical devices can focus on the micro-processes
whereby participants make sense of their engagement, possibly in
relation with other multiple activities.
• How can we provide a fine-grained description of the activities
whereby individuals are made participants, and act as such?
*2. Economic value of contributions*
The outcomes of participatory initiatives may create economic value.
For example, the contributions of users on travel, art or food-related
websites have economic value for the companies being commented upon,
as well as for the web-platform that gathers the users’ opinions.
Case studies of ways for creating value from the voluntary or
involuntary contributions of users, including in the forms of digital
marks they leave, are especially encouraged.
• What economic or business models sustain these initiatives?
• How do these models shape particular modes of user participation?
Analysis of examples could aim at understanding the political and
economic dimensions of contemporary practices such as digital labour,
crowdfunding, the use of lay expertise or citizen science by
private companies or public bodies.
*3. Participation as social ordering*
Participation can be analysed as a social ordering process, since it
allocates roles and responsibilities, makes it possible for some to
have their voices heard but not others, and stabilises particular
public problems at the expense of others.
• How can the inequalities shaped by participatory mechanisms in
technological innovation be accounted for?
• How can we characterise, at micro or macro levels, the hierarchical
constructs that participation results in?
These questions may be examined through the analysis of governance
practices within emerging communities of practice, and also through
the description of the gradual stabilisation of dominant forms
of participation.
*Keynote speakers*
Liam Bannon, UFRJ / University of Limerick / University of Aarhus
Trevor Pinch, Department of Science & Technology Studies, Cornell
University
*Scientific committee*
Romain Badouard (Université de Cergy-Pontoise), Flore Barcellini
(CNAM), Jean-Samuel Beuscart (Orange), Anni Borzeix (Ecole
Polytechnique), Pierre-Jean Benghozi (Ecole Polytechnique),
Eva Boxenbaum (Mines ParisTech), Dominique Cardon (EHESS), Jason
Chilvers (U. of East Anglia), Françoise Détienne (Télécom ParisTech),
Christian Licoppe (Telecom ParisTech), Dominique Pasquier (Telecom
ParisTech), Cécile Méadel (Mines ParisTech), Sezin Topçu (EHESS),
Jan-Peter Voß (T.U. Berlin).
*Important dates*
• The conference will take place on 3-4 December 2015 at Mines
ParisTech (60 bd Saint-Michel, 75006 Paris, France).
• For paper proposals, please submit a title and an extended abstracts
(max. 1000 words) by *21 June 2015*. Authors are invited by submit
their title and abstract to the address:
*(i3conference2015 /at/ mines-telecom.fr)
<mailto:(3conference2015 /at/ mines-telecom.fr)>*.
• Notifications of acceptance will be sent by 15 September 2015
• Full papers corresponding to selected communications presented at
the conference will be solicited for publication after the conference
itself.
*About i3*
The Interdisciplinary Institute on Innovation (i3) is a research and
teaching centre dedicated to economic, human and social sciences.
Created in 2012, by Mines ParisTech and Telecom ParisTech,
two engineering schools of the Institut Mines-Télécom, with the
additional involvement of the École Polytechnique i3 became a research
laboratory funded by the Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique (CNRS). I3 conducts a broad range of interdisciplinary
research relating to innovation, and has 180 permanent members of
staff working in economics, management science, sociology,
psychology, ergonomics and information and communication sciences.
*Contact and further information*
Email: (i3conference2015 /at/ mines-telecom.fr)
<mailto:(i3conference2015 /at/ mines-telecom.fr)>
Best regards,
The conference co-chairs
Michael Baker
Valérie Beaudouin
Nathalie Raulet-Croset
Brice Laurent.
