DRUID26 Professional Development Workshops (PDWs)
Professional development workshops (PDWs) are focused, user driven sessions offering a way of sharing ideas, knowledge and expertise with peers in the DRUID community and develop new ideas and projects.
PDW 1: The Role of Academic Research in Society: Engagement, Impact, and Value Creation
Monday, June 8, 9:00-12:00
Free access for all delegates to DRUID26. No further registration required.
Organizers: Pedro de Faria (University of Groningen), Nikolaos Papageorgiadis (University of Liverpool), Cleo Silvestri (University of Groningen), Wolfgang Sofka (Copenhagen Business School)
Speakers: Andreas Distel (Erasmus University), Morten Frederiksen (Copenhagen Business School), Christoph Grimpe (Copenhagen Business School), Markus Perkmann (Imperial College London), Ammon Salter (University of Warwick), Cleo Silvestri (University of Groningen)
Academic research is increasingly expected to generate benefits beyond academia, informing policy, professional practice, and societal well-being. This shift reflects a move from evaluating research solely by academic influence to also considering its societal relevance. A key pathway to societal impact includes academics’ engagement with external stakeholders through collaboration, consulting, and related interactions that connect research to real-world problems.
However, societal impact remains difficult to generate, observe, and measure. It depends on complex translation processes, sustained relationships, and alignment across differing goals and time horizons, and may emerge indirectly with long time lags and limited visibility.
This Professional Development Workshop (PDW) brings together four scholars to provide an overview of foundational and recent research on societal impact. Three senior discussants, representing different institutional roles, will synthesize insights and reflect on societal impact from the perspectives of a researcher (Nikolaos Papageorgiadis, University of Liverpool), a Head of Department (Christoph Grimpe, Copenhagen Business School), and a Dean (Morten Frederiksen, Copenhagen Business School), highlighting key challenges and opportunities for generating societal impact.
PDW 2: Lost Potentials, Misallocated Talents: Causes and Consequences
Monday, June 8, 9:00-12:00
Free access for all delegates to DRUID26. No further registration required.
Organizers: Karin Hoisl (Mannheim University and Copenhagen Business School), H.C. Kongsted (Copenhagen Business School), Myriam Mariani (Bocconi University)
Speakers: Sofie Cairo (Copenhagen Business School), Isabel Fernandez-Mateo (London Business School), Myriam Mariani (Bocconi University), Atte Pudas (Aalto University), Johanna Schnier (Copenhagen Business School)
Research within the “Lost Einsteins” and “Lost Marie Curies” framework demonstrates that individuals from less advantaged backgrounds and underrepresented groups are markedly less likely to become inventors—despite exhibiting comparable levels of potential. This pattern points to a substantial and avoidable loss of innovative capacity, with profound implications for both economic efficiency and social equity. The central insight is stark: inventive outcomes are strongly associated with socioeconomic background, parental education, and gender, even though underlying ability is likely to be far more evenly distributed. As World Bank President Ajay Banga aptly stated, “Talent is everywhere, opportunities are not.” These insights likely extend well beyond invention. In many domains where idea generation, experimentation, and talent development are critical to performance—across organizations, industries, and economies—potential may be systematically diverted, underdeveloped, or overlooked. Understanding when, how, and why talent is misallocated or unrealized therefore represents a central challenge for innovation research and policy.
This PDW examines lost potential across a broader set of contexts. We will explore common mechanisms, institutional drivers, and possible interlinkages shaping talent development and misallocation, drawing on diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives. Our goal is to identify promising new research questions and methodological approaches that can advance scholarship on lost potential in innovation and beyond.
The PDW will open with two overview presentations on ongoing research in the field, establishing a shared analytical foundation for the workshop. The second part will feature paper presentations by junior scholars, with each paper receiving dedicated feedback from an assigned discussant followed by audience discussion. The final segment of the PDW will consist of structured break-out discussions focused on future research opportunities. Each table discussion will center on a specific theme related to “lost potentials” and will be led by a scholar actively working in that area. Participants will also be invited to give brief research pitches during these discussions, fostering new collaborations and sharpening emerging ideas. Taken together, the workshop aims to build a research agenda that advances our understanding of lost potential and, ultimately, informs strategies for identifying and unlocking it.
PDW 3: Micro–Macro Links for Transformative Entrepreneurship and Innovation: The Role of Individuals, Firms, Partnerships, and Policy
Monday, June 8, 9:00-12:00
Free access for all delegates to DRUID26. No further registration required.
Organizers: Alessandra Perri (LUISS University, LUISS Business School), Vera Rocha (Copenhagen Business School)
Speakers: Raj Choudhury (LSE), Evis Sinani (Copenhagen Business School), Francesco Rullani (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Nilanjana Dutt (Bocconi University)
As societies confront grand challenges such as climate change, geopolitical instability, technological disruption, and persistent social inequalities, understanding how micro-level behaviors interact with macro-level structures and institutions becomes essential. Addressing these challenges requires multi-level research linking micro-level mechanisms (e.g., learning, collaboration, and technology adoption) to broader outcomes (e.g., firm capabilities and strategy, cross-sectoral partnerships, and policy responses), as well as the feedback loops between them.
This PDW advances research focused on how individuals, firms, multi-stakeholder partnerships, and policy actors jointly shape transformative entrepreneurship and innovation. Discussion will explore timely phenomena such as AI-enabled human capital scaling, geopolitical shocks to multinational firms’ innovation, multi-stakeholder collaborations for global challenges, and firm responses to evolving policy landscapes.
The PDW consists of two parts. First, four distinguished speakers share their perspectives on emerging research at the intersection of micro- and macro-level drivers of transformative entrepreneurship and innovation. Second, speakers and organizers will facilitate roundtable discussions among attendants around those thematic areas, based on short idea proposals submitted in advance by participants. Participation is open to all, but pitching an idea at a roundtable requires a short in-advance submission to the organizers.
