Category: Reading List EN

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RL #044: A Reading List to Demystify Machine Learning

Machine learning shapes much of our world, yet many of us understand little about how it works. We remain in the dark about its mechanics. This reading list helps demystify the algorithms that are transforming our future.

In this Oikoplus Reading List, we take a look at machine learning. Of course, we also use various AI tools to support us in our day-to-day work. But to be honest, we have little understanding of how their algorithms work. And since we’re not alone in this, here are a few good reads on the subject. 

Let’s start with a look at the history of software. The article “A Little History of Software Development” on the Ferrovial blog provides a concise history of the evolution of software development. It explores key phases from the early years when programming was informal and experimental, through the industrialization process in the 1980s with structured methods, to the Agile revolution in the 2000s that restored a focus on creativity and collaboration. The piece concludes by discussing modern trends, like AI and low-code platforms, that could transform the industry.

The blog of the MIT Business School has an introduction to machine learning that is well worth reading. The title says it all: The article “Machine Learning, Explained” provides a comprehensive overview of machine learning (ML), its role as a critical subset of artificial intelligence (AI), and its growing impact across industries. It explains how ML enables computers to learn from data without being explicitly programmed and highlights different types of ML (supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning). The article also addresses key issues such as explainability, bias, and the importance of ethical AI.

Quanta Magazine has published an article that is really worth reading. It shows how abstract concepts can influence the way we think about computers, and that computer science is not just about programming languages and technical solutions. The article discusses Lenka Zdeborová, a computer scientist who applies concepts from statistical physics to better understand machine learning and algorithm behavior. She explores how the physics of phase transitions, like water freezing, can model algorithmic changes, particularly in neural networks. By bridging physics and computer science, Zdeborová aims to decode the fundamental properties of large machine learning systems, aspiring to develop a framework similar to thermodynamics for machine learning.

Of course, machine learning is not merely about curiosity-driven innovation, but also a multi-billion dollar business. Matthew Ball provides a good insight into the questions this raises for tech companies. His article “Parallel Bets, Microsoft, and AI Strategies” explores Microsoft’s strategic approach to AI investments, particularly its partnerships with OpenAI, while simultaneously developing its own models. Microsoft has placed parallel bets on different AI technologies, from large acquisitions like Nuance to smaller investments in startups. The piece outlines the competitive landscape between Microsoft and OpenAI and examines the company’s historical strategy of making diversified bets to secure its position in emerging technologies.

Now we’ve looked into machine learning and AI. But we have hardly really understood how the self-learning algorithms work. But wouldn’t that be important? Won’t we all become mere users if we have no idea how the technologies we use in our everyday lives work? This question was asked almost a decade ago. This Brookings article from 2016 discusses the importance of educating the public about machine learning (ML) to increase understanding and trust in AI technologies. It emphasizes that while machine learning algorithms are increasingly influencing various sectors, including autonomous vehicles and facial recognition, the public often lacks knowledge about how these systems make decisions. The article advocates for more transparency and better communication strategies to demystify ML and its impacts on everyday life.

At the end of our little exploration of machine learning, it’s clear that whether it’s corporate strategies like those of tech companies or the need for public AI education, understanding these algorithms is essential to navigating the digital world that is shaping our future. We will continue reading.

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RL #043: Protecting Biodiversity through Private Investment

Biodiversity benefits us all – but it seems to also have to bring in money. How can capital be put at the service of species conservation?

The protection of biodiversity is one of the most pressing challenges of our time – this should be clear to almost everyone by now. In recent years, the European Union has developed comprehensive strategies to counteract the ongoing extinction of species. In addition to legal requirements such as the Nature Restoration Law, the EU is also relying on private investment to mobilise the urgently needed funds for biodiversity protection.

Current EU strategies: laws and private investments

With its Nature Restoration Law, the EU wants to set a milestone for the protection of biodiversity. It obliges the member states to restore at least 20 % of damaged ecosystems in Europe by 2030. But laws alone are not enough. In order to achieve its ambitious goals, the EU is also relying on private investment. One current example is the recently launched EU-funded Bio-Capital project, in which Oikoplus is one of 17 partners. Bio-Capital aims to develop instruments to channel private funding specifically into projects that promote the protection of biodiversity and at the same time bring economic benefits.

The protection of biodiversity requires immense financial resources. Public funds alone are not enough to finance the large-scale restoration of natural habitats. As the European Investment Bank assumes in accordance with WWF figures, up to one million species could become extinct in the coming decades if drastic measures are not taken (European Investment Bank). Private investment in species conservation projects is therefore essential. Innovative financial instruments such as sustainability linked loans or green bonds could help to incentivise companies to make their business more sustainable. This is also emphasised by the World Bank in a report that suggests learning from climate protection when it comes to species conservation.

Examples of innovative financial models

Private equity companies are increasingly recognising the importance of biodiversity for long-term financial stability. According to the Boston Consulting Group, there are clear economic benefits when companies invest in biodiversity-friendly practices. Adopting such practices can both minimise financial risks and open up new business opportunities (BCG Global). Morgan Stanley emphasises that investments in biodiversity protection must be tripled by 2030 in order to achieve the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (Morgan Stanley).

Nevertheless, the question remains as to whether voluntary investments really make a significant contribution to effectively combating biodiversity loss. It has been emphasised for decades that the economy must make its contribution – but this simply does not seem to be possible without coercion. A key challenge is that short-term economic interests are often at odds with long-term environmental goals.

Models such as the UNDP-supported Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) could help here. This programme helps governments to develop and implement national biodiversity finance plans by redirecting public and private financial flows into nature-positive investments (UNDP). With its ‘Do No Significant Harm’ principle, the European Investment Bank also demonstrates that strict environmental standards are necessary to hold the economy accountable in the long term and orientate it towards sustainability (European Investment Bank).

Turning the economy from a driver of species extinction into a protector of biodiversity will ultimately require a combination of legal requirements and financial incentives. The protection of biodiversity is not only an ecological necessity, but also offers economic opportunities. Private investment plays a crucial role in this process. Not only can they ensure the survival of countless species, but they can also open up new areas of business that benefit both investors and nature. We at Oikoplus look forward to working constructively on this issue in the coming years. 

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RL #042: Unprecedented Measures to Strengthen the Resilience of Nature

Europe is at a turning point. The natural world, so important for our health and well-being, is facing huge challenges. Even before the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and other conflicts, it was clear that our planet is fragile. In the 2021 Nobel Prize Summit, a resounding call echoed from 126 Nobel Prize laureates called for a big change in how we treat the Earth. Their message resonated with a growing global movement that wants to protect our planet for future generations. More and more people around the world are joining the scientists in their call to protect our planet

This reading list follows up on our previous one about the European Union’s engagement in space. This time, we’re focusing on how the EU is working to create a greener and stronger future here on Earth. We’ll also highlight how OIKOPLUS is playing a part in these efforts.

The European Green Deal: A Paradigm Shift in Our Relationship with Mother Earth

The European Green Deal has a big goal: By 2050, Europe should no longer contribute to climate change. This means living within our planet’s limits and taking care of its resources. We want to change how we interact with nature, protecting and restoring it instead of harming it. The Green Deal focuses on clean energy, recycling, and protecting the variety of life on Earth. It shows that a healthy economy and environment can go hand in hand.

Photo by Kelly: https://www.pexels.com/de-de/foto/strasse-landschaft-natur-sonnig-7446503/

Addressing Issues: Navigating Challenges and Criticism

Even though the European Green Deal is a big step forward, there are also some concerns. The recent advisory board review shows that many countries are taking their time to put the agreed-upon actions into practice. Some experts, as highlighted by Alexander Dunlap and Louis Laratte in Political Geographyworry that the Green Deal relies too much on technology and the market, and doesn’t go far enough in changing how our society works. Others think it doesn’t give people enough say and that some companies might just pretend to be green.

Two Pillars of the Green Deal: Biodiversity and Sustainable Food Systems

The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Farm to Fork Strategy are two important parts of the Green Deal. They aim to tackle the problems of disappearing wildlife and unsustainable food production. Both strategies put into action what Nobel laureates called for in 2021: a new way of living with our planet, based on balance and sustainability. The Biodiversity Strategy aims to stop the worrying loss of nature by setting ambitious goals to restore and protect our natural world. The Farm to Fork Strategy wants to change how we produce and consume food. Experts are excited about these strategies, calling them groundbreaking. They see them as a big step towards a future where we live with rather than from nature. Both, the Institute for European Environmental Policy and independent research groups see them as a major step towards a more nature-friendly future.

Photo by Rafa De: https://www.pexels.com/de-de/foto/landschaftsfotografie-des-grunen-grasfeldes-3013440/

Leading the Charge: OIKOPLUS and EU Projects

OIKOPLUS contributes to the EU’s Green Deal mission by disseminating and communicating projects like REACT and  BIO-CAPITAL. REACT is leading the fight against invasive fruit flies, which threaten our crops. Through this project, we’re protecting our farms and natural environment. BIO-CAPITAL researches how finances may support biodiversity conservation, ensuring that nature’s capital is valued and protected.

Join us as we continue working towards a greener and stronger future for our planet. 

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RL #041: Space industry is changing – Europe is taking a strategic approach to maintain its role in it

Space industry is undergoing rapid change. At Oikoplus, we are accompanying this change. And in Reading List #041, we hint you to some good reads explaining what’s happening in space right now.

With two of the EU-funded projects in which we at Oikoplus are involved, Europe is laying important foundations for future space ecosystems: our Domino-E project is about utilising European Earth Observation (EO) satellites as efficiently as possible in order to provide satellite images of the Earth as quickly and cheaply as possible. And our EU-RISE project is about advancing in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing (ISAM) technologies.

The ‘Space Age’ has strongly coined our collective and (pop) cultural idea of space travel. How this came about can be read in Far Out Magazine, for example. To this day, large (multi)national science and technology projects are proverbially compared to NASA’s moon landing programme.

The Apollo programme, which led to the moon between 1961 and 1972, is just one example of the space industry of days gone by. The space sector is evolving from large programmes and missions to modular systems. Future space ecosystems will be defined by many players of all sizes, commercial providers for different tasks from logistics and communication to the development of specific sensors, experimental setups and specialised technologies used in space. The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Technology Strategy sets out how this transformation should take place from a European perspective. Large system integrators such as Airbus play just one role among many – albeit an important one.

A new phase of Earth Observation

In recent years, a large number of new business models have emerged in the space sector. Projects that are essentially based on private investment are often referred to as “New Space”. Companies such as SpaceX, for example, which offer comparatively inexpensive transport options into orbit, are putting pressure on established players. Added to this are the national space programmes of up-and-coming space nations, which are also breathing fresh air into the industry. Europe is responding to this development, and maintaining Europe’s position in the space sector is a concern that the EU is supporting through projects such as Domino-E and EU-RISE.

ESA has listed six trends in the field of Earth Observation that characterise the upheaval that is currently underway. Over the past thirty years, Europe has been able to hold its own in the international EO competition. In 1972, the first non-military American Earth observation satellite, Landsat1, was sent into orbit. This was followed in 1986 by the French SPOT1, the first European commercial observation satellite. Since then, the European system integrator Airbus has established itself as the second biggest provider in this market behind Maxar (USA). The Domino-E project, in which Oikoplus participates as part of a multinational consortium, led by Airbus, contributes to the adaptation of European EO capacities to the New Space Age by increasing the competitiveness of EO systems operated in Europe, making them more efficient, more accessible and faster. More information on the project can be found at www.domino-e.eu.

Modular open-source robots: the workshop in space

Another field that is in a phase of fundamental economic and technological innovation is the field of robotic in-space servicing, assembly and manufacturing (ISAM), which involves carrying out mechanical work on satellites directly in-orbit. Numerous projects, technologies and individual modules have been developed in this field in recent years. This is because having robots carry out mechanical work in space is a key technology for space technologies in the future. After all, many satellites will be more cost-effiecient and more sustainable to operate if they can be repaired and upgraded – instead of being replaced by new ones.

The EU-RISE project, in which Oikoplus is involved, is making an important contribution here by analysing future business models for the operation of ISAM services and by linking already developed European components of ISAM systems and testing them in an end-to-end demonstrator. The open source strategy that EU-RISE is pursuing is intended to lead to the creation of standardised interfaces and systems that allow as many players of different sizes as possible to contribute to Europe’s ISAM technology. 

Of course, Europe is not the only region in the world, and the European Union is not the only state actor seeking to secure its market share here. Large-scale ISAM strategies are also being pursued in the US. NASA’s ISAM State of Play provides a good overview of the technologies that could shape the future of space travel here.

At Oikoplus, we are pleased (and also a little proud) to be able to make a contribution to the European space activities by supporting the consortia of our space projects in their communication and dissemination. After all, space industry makes an enormous contribution to the opportunities we all have in our everyday lives, for research in a wide variety of fields and in understanding our universe. If you would like to get an overview of the areas in which Europe’s space sector is making a contribution, you can do so at EUSPA, the European Union Agency for the Space Programme.  

When EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the EU Green Deal in 2019, she spoke of “Europe’s man on the moon moment”. A beautiful metaphor. And like the EU Green Deal, Europe’s path to the future of the space industry is a major task in which many are working together. And so are we.

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RL #040: Retractions – Recapturing published misinformation

In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published a study entitled Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. In the article, Wakefield and his co-authors argue that there is a link between vaccination for mumps, measles and rubella, and autism in children. Years later, it became known that Wakefield had received GBP 480,000 for the results of the study and had concealed this. Today, the study has been withdrawn and Wakefield is no longer a doctor. However, the content of the “study”, which was not a study, still has an impact today.

Withdrawing a paper. Is that possible?

Articles are withdrawn for various reasons. The withholding and concealment of funding bodies or the concealment of conflicts of interest is one of them. The most common reason is honest mistakes in data collection, analysis, or interpretation. As with any other work, these can also happen in research. However, there is also deliberate data manipulation and plagiarism. AI could play a role in the future. People whol request the retracttion of articles are authors who notice inadequacies in their own work (as in the case of Shaawna Williams in The Scientist), colleagues who notice errors, and editors who become aware of inadequacies during public discussions.

Picture by StockSnap on Pixabay

10,000 retracted publications

The retraction of articles is a development of recent years and part of the success of the Retraction Watch database. In 2023, more than 10,000 scientific articles were retracted; 10,000! And it’s not getting better. About 60% of retractions, at least according to Jeffrey Brainard and Jia You in a paper on the added value of strategic retraction tracking, are the result of fraudulent intentions by authors. Dimensions already hinted at by Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus in an article in The Guardian. The bright spots? About 500 authors out of more than 30,000 were responsible for about a quarter of all retractions in 2023. So there are few who produce many retractions. At the same time, more and more publishers have recently jumped on the bandwagon and are now looking for erroneous publications themselves. For example, as Alison McCook reported for Science.org, in 2018 the publishing house IEEE retrospectively reviewed its articles for the period between 2009 and 2010 and removed more than 7,000 publications from its own database.

Retractions: an issue of credibility

With the new verifiability and the demand on publishers to fulfil their obligations, the career pressure on the credibility of scientists has also increased. The Scientist publishes an annual list of the most important retractions in the sciences (2021, 2022). The community has also become more aware and helpful – a “stronger systems hypothesis” advocated by Danielle Fanelli. Titles with particularly spectacular announcements have recently had to face scrutiny. Following the announcement by Ranga Dias et al. that they had found the first superconductor as a solid at room temperature, the article was first picked apart in the preprint within a few months and then withdrawn by the publisher in 2023 at the request of the co-authors. It was Dias’s third retraction, and the first to make waves in the media: Science reported it, the New York Times reported it, the Wall Street Journal reported it. This tarnishes the credibility of individuals, but strengthens science and its community.

Picture by Dominique on Pixabay

What’s next?

It is normal to make mistakes. It is not surprising that fraud occurs. In addition to ethics and morality, there is also competition, careers and unfair means in science. What is not right, and highly problematic for society, is the long wait and lack of information for those who have cited a retracted paper and have not noticed the errors or fraud. Should retracted papers be deleted or made available to posterity in a labelled form?

As a result, there is still room for improvement in retraction processes. Ivan Heibi and Silvio Peroni, for example, in their article published in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, analyse the retraction notice and find that there are serious differences in both content and metadata. Furthermore, according to the authors, retractions are difficult to find because of their negative connotations. It is therefore advisable to continue to work not only on the review of articles and their content, but also on the approach and publicity. This is a call not only to publishers and the research industry, but also to all those who support the research industry in publishing and disseminating knowledge that is considered reliable.

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RL #039: Immersive Experiences in Science Communication

Photo by julien Tromeur on Unsplash

Immersive experiences are very popular as a tool for science communication. Do they keep their promises?

When I was ten or eleven years old, I visited an exhibition about street children in the Global South with my school. We had previously read the book “Das Tor zum Garten der Zambranos” by Gudrun Pausewang in German class, which is about the friendship between a street boy and the son of a rich family who swap roles. The exhibition perfectly complemented the book reading, as it picked up on many of the themes. The exhibition took visitors to Latin American, Asian and African contexts, complete with reconstructed street scenes and matching artifacts. And visitors experienced the exhibition in uncomfortable improvised slippers made from car tires, as street children often wear. 

A quarter of a century later, I still remember this exhibition. But why? My guess: the combination of reading a book, a well-made exhibition and the very tactile car tire slippers was memorable enough to be remembered to this day. An immersive experience of white norther privilege, completely undigital and analog. Today, decades later, immersion is usually thought of as an interweaving of analog and digital experiences. There are numerous specialized providers who are also active in science communication. Immersive virtual reality offers huge potential for communicating science and research. The SciComm portal impact.science therefore sees virtual reality experiences as number 1 of the top 10 science communication trends of 2024. But what exactly are immersive experiences?

Immersion: what? 

The Immersive Experience Institute, a kind of think tank from California, provides useful definitions here. Those who want to delve deeper into the question of what constitutes immersive experiences and what their potential and qualities are can find peer-reviewed answers in the Journal of Network and Computer Applications. And those interested in the practical implementation level can, for example, take a look at the Copenhagen-based company Khora, with whom Oikoplus recently collaborated on an EU project submission. The creative team at Khora develops virtual reality and augmented reality for a wide range of applications. The projects in which Khora is involved show how virtual reality is also being used and researched in EU-funded research and innovation projects. For example, in the Horizon Europe project XTREME (Mixed Reality Environment for Immersive Experience of Art and Culture), which was launched in January 2024. In this project, a consortium of 14 partners is researching and developing mixed reality (MR) solutions for experiencing art.

Of course, many applications of virtual reality, augmented reality and immersive technologies are resource-intensive and costly. As a result, their field of application is often of a commercial nature. One example of this is the exhibition “Van Gogh – The Immersive Experience”, which has been successful around the world. But even here, knowledge is conveyed and brought to life.

What are the communicative benefits of immersion?

But do immersive experiences with the support of modern VR and AR technology also lead to measurable communication success? Well, the answer is not quite that simple. Research into this is being conducted selectively: Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz at the University of Missouri, for example, has investigated the effectiveness of VR as a science communication tool. However, for a very specific use case. In an article on LinkedIn, the company Imagineerium, a British provider of technology-supported immersive experiences, writes: “There has not been a great deal of research done on human psychology when exercised in an immersive experience, but some scientists and psychologists are beginning to look into it more as VR grows from strength to strength and immersion is starting to be used in learning experiences.”

It is probably not easy to say whether digital, immersive experiences are a useful communication tool. As is so often the case, it all depends. In any case, they expand the toolbox of science communication. Virtual reality and augmented reality are certainly a useful tool for many a communicative message and many a target group. But not in any case, for everyone, everywhere. 

The immersive exhibition I visited as a boy, which was completely analog and which I visited in the late 90s, is a good example of this. I remember the experience of the exhibition, but less about the actual exhibition content. But maybe that was just too long ago. 

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RL #036: OIKOPLUS: Five years of communication

Established 18.09.2018

Setting up a company can be risky, especially without prior experience. It requires the assistance of a tax consultant, a lawyer, and a notary. At Oikoplus, we initially established ourselves as a KG, which later became a GmbH – the appropriate legal form at the time. We have frequently reviewed and adjusted our company structure over the years. Additionally, administrative questions often arise during project handling, such as whether to subcontract or employ? Should we handle payroll accounting and bookkeeping ourselves or outsource it to external partners? Do we require a tool for travel expense accounting or is an Excel sheet sufficient? Since Oikoplus was founded, we have been preoccupied with these questions, but we have certainly learned a lot in the process. Our experience has been beneficial. When working with large organisations, universities, or corporations, we have our own contacts for administrative details. Our external colleagues may have to wait for their legal, accounting, or HR departments. In our small team, we make decisions ourselves, which we now recognise as one of our strengths.

Some of our coffee cups went missing in 2020. We now have insurance in case we lose data. Photo: OIKOPLUS.

Tools and Services

Over the years, we have acquired a fleet of tools big and small. We use Mailchimp, Adobe Suite, Nextcloud, QR.io, and CANVA, among others. Additionally, we occasionally create temporary accounts with providers such as GoogleMeets, Miro, and iStock. It is surprising how many subscriptions one can accumulate over time.

We also purchased some equipment. Initially, we used our personal computers and filmed with private cameras. Now, after five years, we have a whole armada of laptops and screens. Additionally, we have expanded our filming capabilities with camcorders, tripods, directional microphones, and clip-on mics. Finally, we have also acquired a lightbox and six boxes of Lego building bricks. We have got sthem to organise workshops that support researchers locate their own work in the vastness of a projects, make it tangible, and find narratives for their work. This brings us to the next point: the methods.

Set-up for the kick-off meeting for the ArcheoDanube project in July 2020. A short time later, we moved into our first office. Photo: OIKOPLUS.

Methods; or: a growing range of services

Initially, we focused on formats and content. We exchanged ideas with our customers both internally and externally, but lacked a strategic and methodical approach. However, this has changed. Due to the complexity of the topics we communicate, we have established clear processes to ensure we are well-informed.

Our projects begin with workshops to identify target groups, key messages, and channels with our partners. From there, we develop customised communication strategies. We conduct interviews with the scientists we support to improve our understanding and gather content for videos, social media, and blog posts. Policy briefs are no longer written alone, but developed in policy cafés together.

Since 2022, we have also been offering workshops for finding narratives and creating communication content together. At the end, the colleagues in the picture will have built a scale. Photo: OIKOPLUS.

Borrowing credibility

We have always been committed to providing our partners with the best service and meeting all agreed targets. However, we have not always been successful in achieving this. One of the reasons for this is quite simple. Our partners, who are mostly established research institutions or large companies, have a wide reach and high credibility. In our early projects, we focused on establishing our own online and offline communication channels for our projects.

A bottleneck that we quickly recognised. The answer: we need to borrow the credibility and reach of the research institutions and companies we work with. Not so easy. Because in our projects, we are perceived as the partner responsible for communicating and disseminating research achievements. It has now become one of our core tasks to explain to the teams of researchers and developers we work with how they can use their own channels or those of their institutions. Because setting up your own digital channels is simply not as easy in 2023 as it might have been a decade ago.

Five years Oikoplus

Our field has evolved, and we have evolved with it. We have a range of new ideas and plans. However, first, we must thank all our companions along the way. Our employees and our colleagues from SynCity and ArcheoDanube, from EnergyMeasures, Domino-E, REACT, and LifeTandems deserve special thanks. We would also like to thank the colleagues whose failed project submissions we supported. Some project applications narrowly failed. We have learned to deal with them. We would also like to thank the readers of our Reading List. While researching and writing these texts, we have repeatedly completed our thoughts and learned a lot in the process.

Finally, a call to action: subscribe to our reading list and follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube.

Happy holidays!

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RL #035: On Innovation and Exnovation

Photo by Sebastien LE DEROUT on Unsplash

In the last Oikoplus Reading List, Michael Anranter took a critical look at innovation culture and innovation communication. We discussed it, and came to an entirely uninnovative solution: We repeat the whole thing, and I also write a text about innovation.

Whatever it is, something in us craves innovation. How else could the constant drive for the new, for the better, have become such the norm? Those who do not merely reproduce in their work, but make it better, are appreciated for it. For breaking new ground, for thinking outside the box, for not standing still, for pioneering, for being creative, for game-changing, for being disruptive. Our language has many beautiful phrases and idioms for innovative thinking.

At Oikoplus, we are constantly challenged to innovate the way we communicate science and research. And the researchers we advise and support are also constantly innovating. Sometimes it seems as if everyone is constantly challenged to reinvent the wheel.

Exnovation: Can it go?

Let’s start with the opposite term to innovation: Exnovation. Because it is often not the new itself that drives progress, but rather what is already there but needs to go. Our REACT project, for example, is all about innovation in the fight against insect pests. But it’s mainly about replacing the old methods – namely pesticides. So is the project driven by innovation, or by exnovation? It’s hard to say. Ultimately, it’s about two sides of the same coin. Nevertheless, exnovation often remains underlit. Jean Bartley and Lawrence Knall point this out in a 2021 article, arguing that a better understanding of exnovation makes for a better culture of innovation.

A text by Alexander Krause on LinkedIn argues in a very similar direction. The agile coach promises that reading his text within two minutes will change the way you think. Well. Just give it a try. 

As I read this, I think to myself: Talking about exnovation instead of just innovation doesn’t necessarily protect you from the weird business coach-speak of our time.

New things were not always at demand

But it wasn’t always the case that new things were valued. More than half a decade ago, I myself conducted an interview with the historian Frank Trentmann, which you can still read on Issuu. 

In it, Trentmann tells of European traders who set out for China in the 17th century with shiploads of innovations, only to be met with incomprehension there, since the value of things there was linked to their age and proven value.

Innovation as a creed

That old things have a high value, we know until today. From arts and antiques, for example. When it comes to intangible things like social norms, age is not necessarily a suitable indicator of quality or acceptance. If innovation is limited to the pure communication level, phenomena such as green-, pink- or wokewashing sometimes emerge.

Photo by Jason Blackeye on Unsplash

And then there is even the rhetorical appeal to innovation, which merely serves to delay overdue ex-novation. It goes something like this: “We trust in technological innovations instead of bans!” You hear that occasionally, for example when it comes to climate change adaptation. Instead of replacing high-emission technologies with low-emission ones by law, i.e., top-down exovation, people wait for innovations to become established without doing much to ensure their success. 

This is not to say that technological innovations cannot also make their contribution. But in many cases it is simply not enough to wait for innovation where exnovation has long been necessary. This could already be read in 2010 in the Harvard Business Review with reference to climate change. “Even if energy innovations have a lot of potential, they might not be deployable until it’s too late. History shows that most of the technology breakthroughs need decades to make it to the mass market.” 

This and many other examples show that it makes perfect sense to include exnovation as a term in one’s own vocabulary. The term helps to critically scrutinize innovations. After all, there are also bad innovations. Incidentally, there is a nice word in German for the thesis in the first sentence of this text, according to which something in us craves for innovation: Neugier (engl: curiosity). The greed for something new. And no matter how critically one questions the concept of innovation. But don’t worry. At Oikoplus, we still believe that curiosity for innovation has its good sides.

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RL #034: Innovation; or Conscientization

Bild von Garik Barseghyan auf Pixabay
Bild von Garik Barseghyan auf Pixabay

In this Reading List, I approach innovation and the transmission of knowledge with the aim of innovation. Starting with thoughts on innovation in universities and in companies, I conclude with an alternative approach to communicating newness that goes back to Paulo Freire: conscientization.

Innovation as mission

Without reflection, I adopt the language of the funding and legislative bodies, of the management consultancies: Innovation and innovation communication are the be-all and end-all of a thriving location. The urge for renewal, which is etymologically inscribed in the concept of innovation, has taken on new meaning in the climate crisis. We are supposed to be innovative: all of us. Individuals, companies, and the administration. On the role of universities in this changed environment, Maximilian Vogt and Christoph Weber formulate that we can no longer avoid a science without a “New Enlightenment” and without a social mission.

Bild von felixioncool auf Pixabay

For companies, the question of the role is no less urgent. Somehow, however, it seems to me that companies are assumed to be quite good at social innovation anyway. It is not innovation that needs to be admonished here; rather, it is the culture of innovation. How can innovation be supported in a more targeted way? This is where innovation communication comes into play. Innovation communication is the communication of new ideas, concepts, products, services, and processes that differ from those that already exist. Innovation communication is not only a critical feature for the success of innovation but a condition for innovation itself:

“The lonely innovator is a myth. Solo innovation does not exist. Unlike invention, it’s a team sport. Working in solitude may lead to invention, but not onnovation because it requires communication with others.”

Alex Goryachev, Forbes Council Member

Not surprisingly, Goryachev concludes that innovation is successful when communication is at its peak. That is, when ideas, concepts, products, services, and processes have been shared and assimilated in as diverse a team as possible in such a way that everyone involved in the innovation process is aware that they can bring about change with the innovation. The order situation is undisputed; tips and recommendations for cultivating a culture of innovation are plentiful and in all forms. For example, here, here, or here. Some of them are almost embarrassingly banal.

Boundaries of innovation

A comprehensive and multi-layered treatment of the concept of innovation can be found in Benoit Godin’s book “Innovation Contested: The Idea of Innovation over the Centuries”. Godin begins his journey on the topic with the ancient Greeks and, starting from there, addresses not only the successes but above all the resistance that innovation has had to experience and overcome time and again. Only excerpts of the book were freely accessible on Google Books, but reading the relevant passages was fun. Godin discusses the roles of faith and the church, as well as the initial difficulties in the collaboration between universities and companies.

Bild von Pavlo auf Pixabay

Ronald C. Beckett and Paul Hyland also address the limits of innovation and the communication associated with it. In their essay, the two argue that innovation happens above all where there is friction. This friction, once perceived as an obstacle, must be overcome – a communicative challenge. The authors’ response to the challenge seems to me to be too conventional, or not explicit enough. Adapting the structures that host innovation processes. Ok, but is that all?

Innovation communication is at the limit. Or: Conscientization

Conscientisation is a concept developed by Paulo Freire that aims to liberate people through education. People should learn to recognise and understand their own reality in order to then assess how new things can change their lives. This could be read as preparing people to participate in innovation processes. An introduction to the term, which has also found its way into the literature as critical consciousness, can be found on Wikipedia. If you want to better understand the basic framework of Freire’s thinking, watch the 8 minutes 14 seconds of “An Incredible Conversation” with Paulo Freire.

Well done: we have now arrived at post-Marxist thinking for innovation culture and communication.

Bild von Bach Nguyen auf Pixabay

The use of conscientization-inspired innovation processes has recently increased again after a first peak in the 1980s: Karin Berglund and Johannson argue for a strengthening of rural areas through a culture of innovation based on conscientization among small enterprises. Juan Díasz Bordavene et al. highlight the need to integrate South American farmers into the innovation process through conscientization in order to develop sustainable solutions for the region. Hsu Meng-Jun et al. documented the life-saving acceleration of innovation processes starting from a common and shared knowledge sharing that is in line with critical conscientization.

At the tipping point

Actually, I didn’t want to write a pamphlet here. In the end, it has become one. My point is that, as everyone seems to be tasked with innovation, it is time to rethink approaches to innovation communication that stem from business administration. We should start with the question of who should be involved in the process. And then what language will enable everyone to express themselves adequately? If these are paintings, then they are just as legitimate as visits to the field, conversations, or Lego sessions in which a team playfully exchanges ideas about innovation. Let’s try out new ideas; also in development departments where only supposedly everyone speaks the same language.

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RL #033: The Language(s) of Science

In this Oikoplus Reading List we present good reads from the web touching on the question of language in science. Language, understood quite explicitly and rather abstractly.

The favour of the mother tongue

At Oikoplus, the working language in all our projects is English. When we meet contacts in our work with whom we can speak in our native languages (German, Italian, Polish, Romanian), we are always happy. Because honestly, working permanently in foreign languages can be exhausting sometimes. For people working in science and research, it is therefore a great starting advantage if their mother tongue is English. So far, so banal. It is less banal, however, to quantify how great the price is paid by all those whose mother tongue is not English, of all languages. A study by Tatsuya Amano et al. aims to do just that:

„By surveying 908 researchers in environmental sciences, this study estimates and compares the amount of effort required to conduct scientific activities in English between researchers from different countries and, thus, different linguistic and economic backgrounds. Our survey demonstrates that non-native English speakers, especially early in their careers, spend more effort than native English speakers in conducting scientific activities, from reading and writing papers and preparing presentations in English, to disseminating research in multiple languages. Language barriers can also cause them not to attend, or give oral presentations at, international conferences conducted in English.”

A mathematical narrative

English is a standard language of science. Mathematics is one too. As an important tool, mathematical principles and concepts help in understanding the world. Patrick Honner gives a very clear example of this in the highly recommended Quanta Magazine. In it, he describes how networks can be described mathematically. And that in the form of a quest to puzzle over.

Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@pyssling240?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Thomas T</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/OPpCbAAKWv8?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a>

When narratives disappear

Mathematics describes the world in a strictly formal way. That is its essence and its task. The world can be described less formally in narratives and legends. Just as mathematics looks back on thousands of years of history, which, interestingly enough, is better told as a narrative, there are countless legends and narratives that are ancient and whose future is threatened. And this is because the languages in which they are told are at stake of extinction. Alexandra Aikhenvald explores how the loss of linguistic diversity is threatened by the extinction of indigenous languages worldwide, and why the loss of stories, legends and myths that comes with it is a problem. 

Accurately describe or narrate?

Accurate, scientific descriptions of the world often appear as the antithesis of narrative descriptions. The tendency towards storytelling in communication – also in science communication – is therefore often criticised. Thinking of the world in terms of narratives is described as a trend of recent years. The term narrative itself, belongs in every buzzword bingo of professional communication work. Whether rightly or wrongly – that is not to be clarified here. The literary scholar Florian Scherbül gives a readable overview of the debate about the pros and cons of the narrative form in describing the world in a contribution to the online portal geschichtedergegenwart.at (in German language, only). 

We hope we have found the right language in this Reading List, and that in our forays through the internet over the last few weeks we have once again uncovered a few articles that not only pique our interest.