The IN-EAST School of Advanced Studies on Innovation in East Asia was a BMBF-funded Graduate School of the IN-EAST from April 2013 until March 2017 (1st funding period), prolonged until December 2019 (2nd funding period). The series of Travelling Conferences, co-organized by the IN-EAST School, is still ongoing during 2020.

Research Agenda

The IN-EAST School of Advanced Studies’ research agenda takes the embeddedness of innovation processes in society as a whole as its general focus of interest, with particular emphasis on the interdependent topics of electro-mobility and urban systems. All research activities take East Asia (China, Japan, Korea) as the subject of their analysis, but provide interfaces for international comparisons and comparative research agendas.

Innovation is understood as a social phenomenon which not only encompasses the technological dimension but which must also be embedded in specific ‘social technologies’ that create innovation-inducing environments and promote the diffusion of new technological solutions in the socio-economic system in order to succeed.

The starting point for the research is therefore the transdisciplinary literature on the institutional foundations of national, regional, sectoral and technological innovation regimes. These specific institutions can be interpreted as ‘capital goods’ determining the productivity of individual and social innovation efforts. But as these embedding institutions exist in specific national cultures and follow different cultural, political and technological path dependencies, innovation in general must be understood as a process that is very much determined by national and cultural idiosyncrasies.

Based on this understanding, we believe that systematic collaboration between different disciplines and area studies can generate significant advances in our knowledge of innovation in general and the parameters of national, regional, sectoral and technological competitiveness in particular.

After undergoing successful evaluation process by peers the IN-EAST School of Advanced Studies was extended for a second funding period until December 2019 to continue its research. The interdisciplinary perspective on innovation will be strengthened and the institutional transfers beyond national borders will be scrutinized.

The research molecules will be transformed and the research work will be continued in two closely interconnected postdocs groups.

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List of individual projects

 
Katharina Borgmann
Contextual Plannung and Urban Design: The Impact of Global Agreements and Frameworks on Dynamics of the Chinese Urban Development

Jun.-Prof. Shuanping Dai
– Research focus: Open Innovation- and Network Theories –
Emergence of New Products and Agile Production Innovation Conjuncture: Evidence form Low-Speed Electric Vehicle Industry in Shandong Province, China

Momoyo Hüstebeck
Innovating Representative Democracy – The Impact of Deliberative Innovations

Beate Löffler
Asynchronies of the Japanese City: Innovation and Persistence

Giulia Romano
The Appropriation and Adaptation of Citizen Participation in a Chinese City: A Step to “Democratic Deliberation”, an Instrument of Power Reassertion and/or Something Else?

Mira Schüller
The Impact of Electrified Vehicles on Future Traffic in China and Germany

Deirdre Sneep
Building Tomorrow: The Construction of Olympic Venues and National Identity in the Prelude for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games

Link to individual research posters

 
List of joint projects

 
Mira Schüller, Katharina Borgmann
Digital Planning Tools & Future Mobility: Interdisciplinary Video Data Analysis for Sustainable Development in China

Giulia Romano, Katharina Borgmann
Sustainable Urban Development Diplomacy Strategies: Transfer Processes of Ideas, Concepts, Frameworks, and their Functions

Katharina Borgmann, Deirdre Sneep
Traditionally High Tech: The Urban Transformations of Beijing and Tokyo for the Olympic Games

Katharina Borgmann, Timo Heinrich
How Do Aesthetic Preferences Drive Decision-Making Processes?

Shuanping Dai, Lijia Tan
Trust in Open Innovation

Shuanping Dai, Timo Heinrich, Lijia Tan
Network Structure for the Emergence of Innovation