MD · Emergence by Design

MD research aspires to satisfy two kinds of objective. The first is to develop the foundations of a theory of innovation dynamics that concatenates design and emergence. The second is to design a set of processes, enabled in part by new ICT, that can help to mobilize civil society to construct a socially sustainable future. These processes will assist the managers of online communities of networks of innovators to enhance the generative potential of relationships among members of these communities; monitor innovation cascades to detect signals pointing to the onset of endogenously generated social crises, as part of a system innovation policy that goes beyond the current strategy of priming the pump of invention; and implement a new kind of dynamic evaluation for socially-oriented innovation projects, which can provide stakeholders with a multivalent representation of the social consequences induced by the projects to help them steer the resulting cascades of change in socially positive directions. The process designs will be informed by the theory, and the theory will be informed by the experience of consortium partners immersed in the world of relevant practice.