After successful editions in Utrecht
(2015), Paris (2016), Southampton (2016), Lund (2017) and Mannheim (2018), the International Workshop on the Sharing
Economy comes
back to Utrecht for its sixth edition.
The University
of Utrecht has indeed held the meeting in June 28 and 29, thanks to the organization of Martijn Arets
(Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development), Rense Corten (Dept. of
Sociology), Joyce Delnoij (Dept. of Sociology) and Koen Frenken (Copernicus
Institute of Sustainable Development).
As every year, the International Workshop represents an important venue to bring together academics and other stakeholders to discuss the latest insights on the sharing economy and to see the advancement on researches of many colleagues.
This edition started with an opening
public event at the TivoliVredenburg on June 27. The public event “Towards an Inclusive
Platform Economy: the Future of Work” moderated by Martijn Arets, hosted a
speech of Peter Baek, head of the British innovation think tank NESTA. He challenges researchers to spend
less time analysing downsides of platforms, especially Uber and Airbnb, in
order to focus instead on the opportunities to solve global challenges coming
from the platforms and alternative financing models. He presented some Nesta UK’s
activities, such as the ShareLab project that aims to grow evidence
and understanding of how collaborative digital platforms can deliver social
impact. He also talked of crowdfunding community investment and of matched crowdfunding as a way of getting ideas
and projects off the ground, combining crowdfunding and institutional funding.
The second speaker of the public event
was José van Dijck, professor in media and
digital society at Utrecht University and co-author of the book ‘The Platform Society’. She prefers to talk of platform societies instead of sharing economy, arguing that we need to
move away from market and consider more societies’ needs. In her speech she
explained how platforms have entered the space of U.S. primary schools
“disrupting” the public education system. Stressing the importance of putting “public values first”
she underlined that new technologies are reducing the privacy of children (that
cannot speak for themselves and are not protected enough by the GDPR) as well
as the autonomy of pupils and teachers. Platforms indeed promise personalized
learning and more efficiency in schools, but there is no evidence on this, and
investment in technology means less money to hire teachers.
The second part of the public event
hosted practitioners and stakeholders presenting stories from practice. Sara Green Broderson introduced the Danish
reputation platform Deemly which helps platform
workers to transfer their reputation from one platform to another, preventing
dependence on a single platform; she defined Deemly as “a platform of
platforms” since it puts individual users back in control of ratings and
reviews.
Nils Ahlsten from the Swedish Public
Employment Service, presented the ongoing experimentation of JobTech, that through an open source infrastructure, API’s and open data for
the creations of different job market applications, helps matching employers
and job seekers, transforming online reputation into offline resume.
Last but not least, Ronald van den Hoff introduced his company, Seats2meet.com, that with over 150 locations worldwide has become an interactive breeding ground for entrepreneurship, inspiration, innovation, cross-linking and cross-pollination. Ronald is also author of the book Society 3.0 and founder of the Society 3.0 Foundation.
The
public open event laid the foundations to start a rich and intense 2-days
International workshop. June 28 at the University Hall, professor of Strategic
Management at the Warwick Business School, Pinar Ozcan, kicked off officially the
2019 edition. With her speech “Intricacies of doing research on sharing
platforms: Theory, methodology, and pitfalls”, she highlighted some of her
findings on market entry strategies, growth challenges, and the role of local
institutions and trade associations in the process. In particular she compared
the entry strategies of Uber and Airbnb in UK, Netherland and Egypt, since by
now we know how platforms enter the market and grow but less is known about how
they move across institutional environments. In her findings she drew special
attention to the transformative approach
adopted by Uber (rushing to gain scale) versus the additive approach adopted by Airbnb (more cooperative with
institutions). In her opinion, over time additive strategies may not be enough,
but they get “a foot in the door”: once they are in, they work with regulators
to address societal challenges.
The
keynote speaker of the second day, June 29, was instead Timm Teubner, professor of Trust in Digital Services in the Faculty of Economics and
Management at TU Berlin. In his speech “Platforms,
trust, and what may come” he discussed “platformization” that is impacting our
individual behaviour and our understanding of public and private sphere as well
of the electronic landscape in general. He also showed the economics of
peer-to-peer markets and the influence of pricing.
The
two inspiring morning lectures started two intense days of presentations
divided in five parallel sessions that covered different topics: reputation,
urban sharing, business model, legal issues, cooperation, mobility,
institutions, trust, environmental impact, human resource management, coops,
participation, individual behaviour, social impact and policy. The variety, as
usual, was high and the level of researches as well. The presentations covered
indeed a lot of research fields and specific topic, analysing and deepening the
worker issues, the evolution of carsharing, the legal aspects of the sharing
economy, the effect of seller reputation on a peer-to-peer marketplace, the
evolution of the food delivery platforms, cities case studies, and so on. A
complete list of presentation can be found here, while the abstracts here. The edition has seen the participation of
people from 23 countries, for a total of 75 presentations. It should be
signaled that a #crowdfunding campaign was also used by a participant from
#Brazil in order to afford her participation at the workshop and present her
research on governance in sharing platforms.
The adding value of this international workshop is the multidisciplinary that it offers. Indeed it brings together scholars with a common interest on sharing economy/platform economy but with different backgrounds and approaches, making the venue rich in inputs and insights, and valuable for everyone in terms of exchanging ideas and views, discussing hypothesis and research questions, brainstorming with colleagues, networking for future partnerships
After
two days of great, intensive and fruitful discussions about the sharing
economy, the closing session, in the general excitement, revealed the next year
location that will be Barcelona, hosted by the Open University of Catalunya.
So, see you all there for updating about our researches. And stay tuned.
On July 9th, the city of Naples will host the third stage of the Roadshow to promote knowledge and the use of innovative tenders.
What are the opportunities related to the use of innovative contracts? What are the tools to make the most of them? To what extent can these procedures represent an opportunity for public administration, companies, start-ups and the research world?
After the events held in Rome and Milan, the roadshow AgID –Confindustria-Conference of Regions and Autonomous-ITACA Provinces will stop off in Naples on Tuesday 9th of July, at the headquarters of the Unione industriali di Napoli (Sala d’Amato). Protagonists of public and private innovation, to deepen the advantages, and resources allocated for innovative tender procedures.
During this day of work, the new collaboration agreement signed by the Mise (Ministry of Economic Development) and the AgID for the implementation of public calls for “imaginative projects to answer public demand” will be presented before an audience of business representatives, administrations, innovation procurement brokers, public research institutions and universities.
It will be the occasion for the Mise to start the program with the launch of the first call.
The day will be divided into two sessions:
9:30 am – 12:30 pm: Policies to support public demand for innovation will be addressed and a discussion will be held on the way to enhance innovative procurement within the planning of purchases and needs;
2.30 pm -17.00 pm: “We do innovation procurement: a laboratory for PA (the Public Administration), companies and research” by AgID: the theme of open innovation, will be explored through its links to innovation contracts. The innovation needs of some of the most important public subjects will also be presented.
The event is part of the process initiated by AgID, Confindustria, the Conference of Regions and Itaca, to promote the knowledge and use of innovative tenders.
Detailed program available in italian here:
How to participate:
Those wishing to participate in the event can send a confirmation email to this address, specifying name, surname and organization: ricerca&innovazione@unindustria.na.it
The 4th edition of the Capital Business Forum will take place at Luiss University, room 200 viale Romania 32, Luiss University from June 18th 9am to June 19th 5.30 pm.
The Rome Forum follows the successful events in Beijing (2016 and 2018) at Beijing Normal University and in Washington D.C. (2017) at the American University and offers opportunities to share research and insights on the special business issues in Capital Cities around the world. Discussion topics: • Industry and innovation clusters • Business and industry relationships with government • Smart capital cities • Education, training and skill development
Program
Welcome address Fabiano Schivardi Vice Rector of Research Luiss
Session 1 – Chair: Fabian Homberg Tomasz Mroczkowski – Unrelated diversification in an economic region: the crucial role of innovation capabilities Richard Tee – Innovation Ecosystems Zheng Feihu – R&D allocation paradox and IP protection: China’s new discovery
Session 2 – Chair: Zhang Pingdan Robert Grant – Leadership in Capital Cities: the role of wisdom Christian Iaione – Collaborative city-making: the co-city approach Kase Kimio – Bipolarity Tokyo-Osaka and Madrid-Barcelona
Session 3 – Chair: Richard Tee Li Kun – Corporate Social Responsibility and Company Performance: A Big-Data Study from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Erran Carmel – Capital Cities, but not business capitals Fang Fang – GDP manipulation and livelihood investment Iftekhar Karim – Entrepreneurship themes around Ethnic Enclave in capital cities
Session 4 – Chair: Erran Carmel Yang Chengyu – How big is the income inequality in China Kathryn Walters-Conte – Science City: US federal government technologies in Washington D.C. foster innovations for startups Yu Jiajie – Corruption and the pattern of trade
Closing remarks: tbc
Conference Chair Fabian Homberg Associate Professor HRM & OB Luiss
Placemaking Week Europe 2019 is Europe’s biggest conference and festival celebrating the impact of placemaking on the urban fabric. From June 12th-15th, roughly 400 placemakers, representing professionals from a variety of disciplines, including politicians, civil servants, developers, big and small companies will be present in La Marina and around the city of Valencia to share best practices, create new knowledge in interactive workshops, focus on accelerating existing and new projects and celebrate the growing contribution of placemaking in creating better cities.
This year Placemaking Week will revolve around five main topics:
After a successful meeting in February, the City Science Initiative meets again in Amsterdam from the 11th to the 12th of June. Cities like Groningen, Paris, Lublin, Warsaw and Hamburg will be hosted by Caroline Nevejan, Chief Science Officer of the City of Amsterdam in order to discuss their strategies. Below some of the challenges this new initiative is trying to tackle:
Governance and finance for City Science
Cities are not only in need of more research on the urban challenges they are facing, they are also in need of a better connection with science and a better understanding of available research. To bridge the gap between research institutions and local government one has to take into account their different needs: where universities insist on independence, local governments prioritize political responsibilities and specific solutions. This also means that definitions of ‘academic excellence’ in universities provide targets which are not directly commensurable with the targets of local government, where academic research is judged by its social impact, which is difficult to measure. Governance also implies financing. Even though both local government and universities are funded by public money, financing happens through differing channels. It is therefore often difficult to find a common ground.
• How can universities be stimulated to maintain definitions of excellence that include social impact?
• How can local governments formally or informally influence research agendas of universities?
Learning and communication between science and policy
Universities and local government make use of differing languages, processes and quality assessments. Therefore it is difficult to come to better cooperation and effective communication is a bottleneck issue. One of the ways to come to better cooperation between science and policy, is to better understand existing best practices. One of the aims of the City Science Initiative is to collect these best practices.
• What best practices exist to improve learning and communication between science and policy that can be used in cities?
• How can learning and communication between science and policy be improved on a structural level?
A need for a new research paradigm on City Science
The City Science Initiative could develop into a Community of Practice of City Science Officers: a community of people sharing experiences from their work practice and developing new knowledge from this cooperation, in a way similar to which scientists form communities of practice. The community of practice can develop a shared language and shared concepts to establish a new research paradigm for urban research: fundamental research across the board, including both social and natural sciences. This fundamental research is aimed at answering questions on the governance of research on the local level: what is the relation between university and the city and how can knowledge and data be shared? At this point, only few researchers are trained to answer these types of questions. This new form of research should be interdisciplinary and aim at urban social impact. City science is distinct in its methodologies, standardization, assessment valorisation and focus on agenda setting and impact.
• What are the necessary ingredients for a new research paradigm for City Science?
• What steps are needed to establish such a research paradigm and to create a community of practice?
These among others are the questions and challenges that will be addressed during the second City Science Initiative Meeting in Amsterdam. Stay tuned for our feedbacks on twitter!
Il 14 giugno la Fondazione IFEL ospiterà, presso Palazzo Baldassini dalle ore 10 alle 13, un incontro dal titolo “Valore comune. La crisi ecologica e la crisi finanziaria chiedono un nuovo rapporto tra economia e società” per stimolare il dibattito tra studiosi e policy makers su come gestire la transizione ecologica nel quadro di un’economia responsabile dal punto di vista sociale ed ambientale che garantisca la crescita inclusiva attraverso la creazione di valore condiviso.
Parteciperà a seminario Gaèl Giraud (Chief Economist dell’Agenzia di Sviluppo Francese); Marco Damilano (Direttore de l’Espresso); Pierciro Galeone (Direttore Fondazione IFEL); Alessandra Smerilli (Pontificia Facoltà dell’educazione Auxilium); Edoardo Zanchini (Legambiente); Christian Iaione (LUISS, LabGov.city).
ENGLISH Description
Next June 14th 2019, the IFEL Foundation will host a discussion on the theme “Common Value: the Ecological crisis and financial crisis impel a new relationship between the Economy and society”. The event will be held from 10am to 1pm at the Palazzo Baldassini.
