GRK 1672:  Innovation Society Today: The Reflexive Creation of Novelty

• Subject Area: Social Sciences
• Term: from 2012 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 163866004

An inseparable part of modern society, innovation is currently acquiring new contours in its relation to society: Societies are becoming innovation societies, in which innovation is one of the main driving forces of change. Innovations in modern society are primarily (re-)produced in innovation fields, i.e. action fields which are constituted by the interactions between actors and which are based on specific, innovation-related topics (e.g. e-mobility or bank regulation). Such innovation fields often are located between and within different areas of society. Im-parted through these innovation fields, new developments drive societies: as motifs for action (semantics of novelty), elements of routines (pragmatics of creative performance), and sys-tematically (re-)produced social structures for generating novelty (grammar of innovative re-gimes).In this process, innovation becomes an increasingly reflexive, heterogeneously distributed, and ubiquitous phenomenon. Reflexivity in innovation relates to the ongoing and systematic production and reproduction of novelty in society based on a growing body of knowledge. This also highlights recursiveness and momentum as well as the innovation-specific devel-opment of structures as crucial aspects of innovation processes. Heteroge-neously distribut-ed innovation signals a shift from the individual entrepreneur to innovation produced in actor networks. Ubiquity of innovation signifies that novelty is no longer restricted to the traditional spheres of science and economy; rather, it has become a generalized imperative in modern society.The Graduate School thus addresses the following key question: How does the innovation society constitute its transformations reflexively as innovation? In order to answer this ques-tion we need to clarify how innovation and novelty are brought forth reflexively by a multitude of actors distributed in and across innovation fields. Innovation societies are characterized by the fact that innovation is the driving force of social change. Practices, orientations, and pro-cesses will be the focus of study in selected innovation fields. In these fields, in addition to familiar innovation-related topics such as the commercial development and manufacture of new technologies, other topics that cannot be subsumed under neat categories such as tech-nology, economy, or politico-administrative units such as nation states will also be examined. With this extended concept of innovation in society, the graduate school adopts a broader social science-based approach that goes be-yond an economic perspective. By comparing case studies on the constitution of innovation in different innovation fields, participants will not only develop an in-depth, empirically founded understanding of what ¿innovation society¿ means today and its considerable impact on socialization, they will also gain insights into how innovation fields contribute to these processes.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Berlin
• Participating Institution: Leibniz-Institut für Raumbezogene Sozialforschung e.V. (IRS)
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Arnold Windeler
• Participating Researchers: Professorin Dr. Nina Baur; Professor Dr. Knut Blind; Professorin Dr. Gabriela B. Christmann; Professorin Dr. Sybille Frank; Professorin Dr. Christiane Funken; Professor Dr. Jochen Gläser; Professor Dr. Hubert Knoblauch; Professor Dr. Johann Köppel; Professorin Dr. Martina Löw; Professor Dr. Marcus Popplow; Professor Dr. Ingo Schulz-Schaeffer; Professor Dr. Jan-Peter Voß