Co-creation in health innovation

Modern society is facing complex and persistent global challenges, such as climate change, non-communicable diseases and unmet medical needs, for which more than one solution exist. These solutions often revolve around innovations. But, this kind of innovation requires change at many different domains, as stakes are high and multiple actors are involved. Various trends are visible: First, new technologies are increasingly complex and converged, such as nanomedicines or biochips. Second, public engagement grows. We are living in an increasingly individualized society of consumers and citizens, who are undertaking action to self-actualisation and co-developing their well-being through innovations. Third, innovations cannot be understood without its intertwined regulatory practices, as novel health claims on food products or regulation of advanced medicines show. Based on these entwined challenges, it is clear that society increasingly relies on co-creation to make innovation a success. Co-creation being defined as the cooperation of multiple actors in a creative process, aligning various ideas, expertise, values and interests. We propose a new take on the systemic innovation approach. One that uses the lens of co-creation as an ongoing alignment process of convergence, collective actions, and institutionalisation, that could lead to improved innovation outcomes, such as more wellbeing or better quality of life. We combine insights from science, technology and innovation studies, evolutionary economics and institutional sociology. We focus on illustrative examples from orphan drugs and personalized medicines development, tackling unmet medical needs, and perform longitudinal case studies on the dynamics of co-creation, as enacted in spaces of technological design, user communities, and regulatory practices.

Speaker Bio:

http://www.uu.nl/staff/EHMMoors