Ομιλία του Gianluca Carnabuci με θέμα: “Finding the “adjacent possible”: where
recombinant inventions are most likely to occur and who is most likely to
discover them”

The
Tech-Transfer office of UoC with the TECHNIS research group and
TIME-MBE are organising the 1st of a series of webinars that focus on
intellectual property and innovation. Please join us on Tuesday the 9th of
November 2021 at 11:00 London time i.e. 12:00 Brussels time, 13:00
Athens time. The speaker is Gianluca Carnabuci, ESMT Berlin. The
title of the talk is “Finding the “adjacent possible”: where recombinant
inventions are most likely to occur and who is most likely to discover
them”.

This webinar is free and open to all. The moderator is
Dr. Andreas Panagopoulos. To join us follow this Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/91535594322?pwd=SEhZTHRkZENQYW10WXM0dUk1c1RUUT09

Abstract: Extant innovation
research suggests that predicting which new knowledge combinations will be
discovered is like ‘finding a needle in the haystack.’ Challenging this view,
we examine almost two centuries (1836–2010) of US patent data and demonstrate
three key findings. First, nearly all new creative combinations occurred within
a particular network configuration (the open 2-path). Second, most such
combinations were discovered by inventors with knowledge in a domain adjacent
to the combined domains, not in the combined domains themselves. Third, only
the new combinations discovered by inventors with adjacent knowledge had an
increased likelihood of becoming technological breakthroughs. Our findings
extend current theories of recombinant invention, add precision to the notion
of “adjacent possible,” and improve our ability to predict where breakthrough
inventions will occur.