YIMBY Generation – yes in my back yard! UK householders pioneering microgeneration heat

This report summarises the responses to a survey of over 900 households (the largest such UK study to date) who were considering or buying microgeneration heat technologies. It reveals what makes people buy or reject them and provides insight into their experience of microgeneration. It covers four technologies, all of which were eligible for grants under phase 1 of the Low Carbon Buildings Programme (LCBP): – Solar thermal hot water – Ground source heat pumps – Wood-fuelled boilers – Automatic pellet-fed biomass room heaters or stoves. This report concerns part of an Open University and Energy Saving Trust project that aims to evaluate carbon saving microgeneration heat technologies for UK households, funded under the UK Higher Education Innovation Fund's Carbon Connections programme. This report builds on previous Open University research on consumer adoption of household renewables (e.g. Herring, Caird and Roy, 2007) and summarises the results of a scoping study on what drives and inhibits consumer adoption. This study also forms the background for a detailed technical and user evaluation by the Energy Saving Trust and Open University of a selected microgeneration heat technology – heat pumps – in real UK domestic installations

The Need for F/LOSS (Governance) Operations

The case for the effective operation of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (F/LOSS) in the enterprise has never been stronger. Yet in some quarters, the chasm between senior management's perception of the penetration of F/LOSS within their organization, and the reality, has never been wider. And when you consider that Gartner predicts that "by 2012 more than 90% of enterprises will use open source in direct or embedded form", this suggests that the development of an effective F/LOSS policy will become increasingly necessary for business operations. Many enterprises, for now, are sourcing the majority of their F/LOSS solutions via a vendor. This does not remove the need for governance. Even with commercial arrangements in place, it is crucial that business have an understanding of F/LOSS communities: what drives them, how to interact with them, and what obligations they may have to them. The game has changed and innovation is no longer the reserve of software vendors with large development budgets. Software development is now enabled by open licenses that afford great freedoms and, in doing so, facilitate widespread collaboration. With this unprecedented pace of innovation, comes new obligations. We argue that the need for education around F/LOSS communities and licensing is clear

3D PRINTING, OPEN-SOURCE TECHNOLOGY AND THEIR APPLICATIONS IN RESEARCH

Open-source software received tremendous success as it drives down the cost of software and expand the distribution. Open-source hardware, as part of the open-source movement, has just risen into public attention for its potential to further drive down the cost of all kinds of manufacturing goods and reshape the manufacture chain. In this report we explores the history, development and the future of open-source hardware project, summarizing the opportunities, challenges and possible solutions. 3D printing is demonstrated as a booster to assist open-source hardware’s development. Low-cost 3D printer enables at-home and in-time fabrication, the download-print-use-improve-distribute cycle is established to encourage more to make and in turn to benefit more. Researchers, teachers and scientists are the first to receive the benefit since they are often lack of budget to purchase much expensive research tools with only limited function. To demonstrate the power of open-source 3D printing in driving down research cost. A library of 3D printable optics components are designed, printed and tested. The study shows significantly reduced research cost – more than 97% equipment investment is saved with some of the optical parts representing only 1% of the cost of its commercial version. Cost reduction stimulates a much broader participants that can further help in modifying, improving the project or even developing new project, this is how open-source hardware innovation chain is established. In the end it is summarized as the technology advances, printers suitable for all kinds of material such as metals, bio-materials, semiconductors are become feasible, the open-source paradigm has the potential to replace the tradition manufacture and activate the new future

Audiovisual preservation strategies, data models and value-chains

This is a report on preservation strategies, models and value-chains for digital file-based audiovisual content. The report includes: (a)current and emerging value-chains and business-models for audiovisual preservation;(b) a comparison of preservation strategies for audiovisual content including their strengths and weaknesses, and(c) a review of current preservation metadata models, and requirements for extension to support audiovisual files

SMES, Open Innovation and IP Management: Advancing Global Development

[Excerpt] Micro-Small-Medium Enterprises (abbreviated herein henceforth as “SMEs”) are global drivers of technological innovation and economic development. Perhaps their importance has been somewhat eclipsed by the mega-multinational corporate entities. However, whereas the corporations might be conceptualized as towering sequoia trees, SMEs represent the deep, broad, fertile forest floor that nourishes, sustains and regenerates the global economic ecosystem. [. . .] Broadly recognized as engines of economic and global development, SMEs account for a substantial proportion of entrepreneurial activity in both industrialized and developing countries. Indeed, their role as dynamos for technological and economic progress in developing countries is critical and cannot be underemphasized. In industrialized countries, SMEs as major contributors to GDP and private sector employment, in more than a few countries contribute to as much as 60% of the national workforce. In a not unsubstantial portion of developing countries, SMEs are known to employ more than 70% of workforce. [. . .] As foci of technological creativity, SMEs propel long-term growth by facilitating innovation and its diffusion across local, national, regional and international economies. However, innovation immediately begets intellectual property (IP) and the concomitant urgent need to address intellectual property rights (IPR). Hence, to realize the maximum value of innovation, SMEs need to recognize, understand and manage IP in order to protect their IPR and thereby accelerate their innovations towards commercialization; this will, in turn, not only improve their business revenue flow, but ultimately raise the standard of living in their respective countries. IP is thus the essential link in the economic/technological development chain, between creativity/invention, on the one hand, and innovation/commercialization, on the other. SMEs therefore face a number of needs and challenges with respect to IP, IPR and management thereof. This will involve efficient utilization of assets, resources and capital, of which the human/intellectual aspect becomes increasingly important in the emerging global knowledge economy. SMEs in the future will need to recognize the reality and indeed necessity of economies of scale, i.e., the need to “merge” in virtual networks which whereas they might resemble larger firms, are not, i.e., are more like the jellyfish (loosely assemble, organized colony of single-cellular organisms: “SME networks”) and less like the whale (highly structured, systematized, hierarchical organism: the “corporate firm”). This will require sophisticated understanding how open innovation networks, IP management and global economic opportunities can be strategically merged to drive development

Market fields structure & dynamics in industrial automation

There is a research tradition in the economics of standards which addresses standards wars, antitrust concerns or positive externalities from standards. Recent research has also dealt with the process characteristics of standardisation, de facto standard-setting consortia and intellectual property concerns in the technology specification or implementation phase. Nonetheless, there are no studies which analyse capabilities, comparative industry dynamics or incentive structures sufficiently in the context of standard-setting. In my study, I address the characteristics of collaborative research and standard-setting as a new mode of deploying assets beyond motivations well-known from R&D consortia or market alliances. On the basis of a case study of a leading user organisation in the market for industrial automation technology, but also a descriptive network analysis of cross-community affiliations, I demonstrate that there must be a paradoxical relationship between cooperation and competition. More precisely, I explain how there can be a dual relationship between value creation and value capture respecting exploration and exploitation. My case study emphasises the dynamics between knowledge stocks (knowledge alignment, narrowing and deepening) produced by collaborative standard setting and innovation; it also sheds light on an evolutional relationship between the exploration of assets and use cases and each firm's exploitation activities in the market. I derive standard-setting capabilities from an empirical analysis of membership structures, policies and incumbent firm characteristics in selected, but leading, user organisations. The results are as follows: the market for industrial automation technology is characterised by collaboration on standards, high technology influences of other industries and network effects on standards. Further, system integrators play a decisive role in value creation in the customer-specific business case. Standard-setting activities appear to be loosely coupled to the products offered on the market. Core leaders in world standards in industrial automation own a variety of assets and they are affiliated to many standard-setting communities rather than exclusively committed to a few standards. Furthermore, their R&D ratios outperform those of peripheral members and experience in standard-setting processes can be assumed. Standard-setting communities specify common core concepts as the basis for the development of each member's proprietary products, complementary technologies and industrial services. From a knowledge-based perspective, the targeted disclosure of certain knowledge can be used to achieve high innovation returns through systemic products which add proprietary features to open standards. Finally, the interplay between exploitation and exploration respecting the deployment of standard-setting capabilities linked to cooperative, pre-competitive processes leads to an evolution in common technology owned and exploited by the standard-setting community as a particular kind of innovation ecosystem. --standard-setting,innovation,industry dynamics and context,industrial automation

Imagination and Interpretation On the dialogue between Cornelius Castoriadis and Paul Ricoeur

On March 9th, 1985, Paul Ricoeur and Cornelius Castoriadis met at the studio of the France Culture “Le Bon Plaisir” radio broadcaster. In 2016, the transcript of their dialogue, their only public debate, was published. This publication is significant not only because it highlights the points of convergence and divergence between the two prominent thinkers, but also because the issues they discuss: the relation between society and history, tradition and creativity, imagination and collective action, are relevant to the philosophical and political discourse of our time