17-18-19 July 2019 University Parthenope Naples, Italy

The world population is aging rapidly. Health players must ensure that all people grow older with security and dignity, participating in society as citizens with full rights. However, nowadays the universal access to healthcare and clinical assistance could become difficult to offer due to economic reasons. Health costs must be contained in order to create a sustainable health system. To this end, more actors with different decision-making powers (e.g., regional bodies, health departments and patients) intensively collaborate with firms and institutions to develop effective and innovative drugs and devices. The aim of health innovation is to enable a variety of organizations (e.g., hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, national agencies and so on) to create in innovative ways value for patients, caregivers, clinicians, payers of health technologies and services (e.g., NHSs or insurance companies) and all the stakeholders involved in the healthcare process. To achieve this goal, healthcare organizations must adopt a flexible culture open to change and external collaboration. Health organizations must adapt their strategies, business models, projects and even redefine their mission to face effectively the new challenges about managing the access, value and sustainability of care (Elton and O’Riordan, 2016). Therefore, the use of push strategies and linear processes are necessary to support innovation. Disruptive innovation in healthcare is an important way to face this and other industry problems (Christensen, Grossman & Hwang, 2009). A current key challenge within this industry refers also to the adoption and implementation of new health technologies. Nowadays new technologies and devices transform how health organizations and systems offer their product/services and deliver value (e.g., via app and sensors). In this direction, the rising paradigm of e-health offers critical future growth opportunities (Eysenbach G., 2001). For instance, doctors can design specific interventions tailored for their patients and monitor information about patients in real time (e.g. via smartphone, even remotely). This is a crucial point since, at the end, the ultimate goal of healthcare innovation and technology is to improve (and prolong) the life of people.

This conference (http://rni-napoli2019.uniparthenope.it) aims to provide:  new theoretical and practical tools;  concepts and methods for innovation in healthcare;  new health technologies to improve the life of people. The aim is to contribute to the extant debate and our understanding about the dynamics of the healthcare industry (and its complementary sectors) by exploring the main opportunities, issues and challenges that lead health organizations and systems to create (or even to destroy) value and innovate. More in general, the conference organizers wills to host researchers interested in the understanding of how innovation can improve the quality of life of human beings. Being a multidisciplinary meeting on innovation, the conference welcomes submissions from researchers in economics, policy-making, finance, accounting, organization studies, strategy, technology and innovation management, engineering, history and sociology. Potential authors interested in submitting a paper to the RRI conference on « Innovation for Health. Innovation for Life » could focus their submissions, for instance, on the organization of the health innovation processes and networks, specific application domains and their specificities, the required conditions (e.g. tools, methods, technologies, spaces), skills, routines, resources and competencies for innovation within these contexts.

We report some general research questions that authors interested in submitting a paper to this conference could consider: What is the added-value of new health technologies (e.g. wearable devices) to enrich the economics of institutions and healthcare services’ providers? How do innovative health technologies revolutionise healthcare markets and systems? How do health organizations differ in reacting to innovative industry changes and dynamics? What are the impacts on innovative financing modes (e.g. crowdfunding) on the commercialization and market access of new drugs or therapies? How do institutions and private companies co-innovate to improve the quality of life of people? What is the role of technology for the improvement of people life conditions? Application topics include, but are not limited to:

1) Technological, organisational and social change in healthcare

2) Economics of healthcare innovation

3) Public policies and programmes supporting social and health innovation

4) Strategic innovation in health services and products

5) Industrial and technological dynamics in life sciences

6) R&D and innovation in pharmaceutical industry

7) Entrepreneurship, venture capital, growth and start-up companies in health and wellbeing sectors

8) Interaction between public research organisations and biotechnological and pharmaceutical industries (e.g., technology transfer)

9) Local innovation systems for an healthy and sustainable world

Session (Track) proposal

Extended abstracts should not exceed two-pages and must contain the following information:

• Title of the session -Chairs’ name and mail address (Corresponding author should be identified)

• Key words

• Presentation of the subject

• Expected topics for communication proposals

• References (10 max)

Communication proposal

Extended abstracts should not exceed two-pages and must contain the following information:

• Chosen topic(s) code: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

• Title of the communication

• Authors’ name and mail address (Corresponding author should be identified)

• Keywords (4 max)

• Aim of the communication and originality of the subject

• Methodology

• Expected results and their implications on public policies

• References (10 max)

Participants

The conference welcomes all researchers and encourages PhD students and young researchers to participate. The conference will offer keynote sessions with guest speakers, special sessions on key topics and a dedicated poster session for PhD students. A plenary session will conclude the two days. To date, the confirmed keynote speakers are:

1. Prof. Alfredo De Massis (Università di Bolzano, Italy)

2. Prof. Giovanni Dosi (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa, Italy)

These two days will be complemented by cultural events. Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st July will be exclusively dedicated to cultural activities (program in progress).

See more information here