JJUS00006U Innovation and Proactive Law

Volume 2015/2016
Content

The main themes of this course will be

• Concepts and tools of a proactive law approach;

• Interdisciplinary problem solving;

• Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) from scientific and legal perspective;

• Hands on experience with work in interdisciplinary teams;

• Identify innovation opportunities and improve innovations through the

convergence of technical and legal knowledge.

This course will prepare you for thise complex professional future through the introduction of proactive, interdisciplinary problem solving and responsible research and innovation. You will learn to apply interdisciplinary methods and gain hands on experience in working in interdisciplinary teams. Anticipation of future problems, combining technical and legal knowledge and having the ability to take proactive and responsible action are a constantly growing aspect of practice in modern organizations. Advisors with these abilities create unique value in research and competitive advantage in business and are therefore in increased demand. The course is aimed at students with either a background in science or in law. You should have a solid knowledge foundation and skills in your core discipline, be fascinated by innovation and wish to use our knowledge in an interdisciplinary and experimental learning environment. The participants gets hands on experience with working in interdisciplinary teams through interaction and work with cases from life science areas such as food, agriculture, resource management, nature protection and environmental management. The hands on approach will be intertwined with presentations and reflections on different methods, techniques and experiences from a variety of interdisciplinary projects. Finding proactive and responsible solutions require that team members can understand and apply methods for innovation and entrepreneurship. The course will be dealing with complex management situations that require simultaneous consideration of the core elements of a legal system, institutions, sources of law, decisionmaking procedures, complex problem solving, teamwork and stakeholder involvement. You will also be challenged to communicate your knowledge to people of different disciplinary backgrounds and relate it to a diverse body of knowledge. We expect that you are curious and motivated to bring your core knowledge into an interdisciplinary and experimenting setting; will be an active participant in all aspects of the course; are open minded and keen on working in teams to find new avenues to new solutions.

The course can be taken as a 7,5 (offered by faculty of Science) or 10 ECTS (offered by Faculty of Law) version with a duration of three and four weeks, respectively. The 10 ECTS version will include a larger written assignment in addition to the portfolio developed during the 7,5 ECTS course (which is the same for both versions).

Learning Outcome

Knowledge: Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of factors influencing innovation processes. Demonstrate knowledge of core factors and roles in an interdisciplinary context. Demonstrate knowledge about fundamental legal principles, working proactively with innovative processes. Demonstrate knowledge of key concepts and principles establishing, facilitating and managing a cross functional team. Demonstrate knowledge of factors which influence the quality of communication in interdisciplinary settings.

Skills: Ability to design and manage teamwork in interdisciplinary innovation processes. Ability to identify relevant legal matters that can influence innovation processes. Ability to identify, obtain and use relevant literature and other types of information in relation to solving specific tasks in the innovation process. Ability to carry out a legal analysis of an innovation project or business plan.

Competencies: Can analyze complex social systems as a basis for developing technically feasible, socially and economically desirable and legally sustainable solutions. Can collaborate with legal/scientific experts with the purpose of developing value creating, well-argued and relevant solutions to concrete innovation problems. Can organize and lead innovation projects from planning to implementation in a legal framework and work independently in interdisciplinary settings with professionals from different fields. Will be able to communicate both technical aspects and legal aspects at a professional level.

Thomas F. Gieryn, Cultural Boundaries of Science, University of Chicago Press 1999, pp. 1-35

Inger-Johanne Sand, The interaction of Society, Politics and Law: The legal and communicative Theories of Habermas, Luhmann and Teubner, Scandinavian studies in Law, vol 53, 2008, pp. 45 – 75

Sheila Jasanoff, Future imperfect: Science, Technlogy, and the imaginations of modernity, in Sheila Jasanoff, Sang-Hyun Kim, Dreamscapes of Modernity – sociotechnical imaginaries and the fabrication of power, University of Chicago press, 2015, pp. 1-29

Soili Nystén-Haarala, The Long-Term Contract – Contract Law and Contracting, Finish Lawyers Publishing, Chapter 1, pp. 1-6

Soili Nystén-Haarala, Nari Lee, Jukka Lehto, Flexibility in Contract terms and contracting practices, International Journal of Managing, Projects in Business, Vol. 3 No. 3, 2010, pp. 462-478

George J. Siedel, Helena Haapio, Using Proactive Law for Competitive Advantage, American Business Law Journal, Vol. 47, issue 4, Winter 2010, pp. 641 – 686

Sonali K. Shah, Mary Tripsas, The accidental Entrepreneur: The emergent and Collective process of User entrepreneurship, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2007, pp. 123 – 140

Handbook on Law, Innovation and Growth, Chapter 9: Why do Entrepreneurs Patent, pp. 212 – 244 Chapter 11: Controlling the Means of Innovation: The centrality of private ordering arrangements for innovators and entrepreneurs, pp. 274 – 299

Robert Cunningham, The tragedy of (Ignoring) the information semi-commons: A Cultural Environemntal perspective, Akron Intellectual property Journal 2010 (available on SSRN), pp. 1 – 34

Roy Garner, Elinor Ostrom, James M. Walker, The Nature of Common-Pool Resources, Rationality and Society, vol. 2 no. 3, july 1990, pp. 335 – 358.

Charles Leadbeater, We think, Profile books Ltd, 2008, pp. 27-60

Lee, Nari and Nystén- Haarala, Soili and Huhtilainen, Laura, Interfacing Intellectual Property Rights and Open Innovation (August 20, 2010). Lappeenranta University of Technology, Department of Industrial Management Research Report No. 225. Available at SSRN: http:/​/​ssrn.com/​abstract=1674365 or http:/​/​dx.doi.org/​10.2139/​ssrn.1674365 pp. 1-11

Peter B. Meyer, An Inventive Commons: Sources of the airplane and its industry, Conference paper, September 2011, available here: http:/​/​www-law-nyu-309756845.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com/​sites/​default/​files/​ECM_PRO_069779.pdf pp. 1 – 29

Sally Smith Hughes, Making Dollars Out of DNA – the first major patent in Biotechnology and the commercialization of molecular biology, 1974 – 1980, History of Science and Society, Vol. 92, No. 3 (Sep., 2001), pp. 541- 575

Elinor Ostrom, Public Entrepreneurship: A Case study in Ground Water Basin Management, Doctoral thesis, University of California, 1964, pp. 2-48

Luis Campos, The BioBrick™ Road, Biosocieties, vol. 7, 2, 2012, pp. 115 – 139

Pages total: 458

Students will be required to find supplementary material customized to their individual projects

The course participants will develop skills and competences to identify, critically analyse and act upon innovation openings emerging from the convergenece of law and science.
Course and materials is in english, hence good skills in english - both in oral and written - is an advantage. The course will be a natural continuation of the MA-course
"Iværksætterens Juridiske Udfordringer", but it is not a requirement to have taken this course.
The course will consist of introductory lectures and relevant student activities, individually and in groups with exercises based on specific cases, including case law. This program will
not only develop a new multi- and interdisciplinary content, but will furthermore use and extend learning methods bases on accelerated learning, and do so in an ICT supported
blended learning model. Based on actual cases the pedagogical approach also address the development of key competencies such as self-awareness in, inter-personal relations and high level of communicative skills needed for contextual reflection and the ability to cope with complexity. Focus on blended learning has been chosen to make learning efficient and fruitful. The idea is to replace learning that mostly involve information transfer by ICT and to make repetitive effects by technology in order to create better inperson learning experiences for students when technology is used to free up time. The students will present relevant topics and guest professors are invited for special or actual topics. During the course participants will make small reports or presentations topics related to the themes of the course which will be compiled in a portfolio. The summer course will have students from different fields and on different levels and must therefore make space for individual learning progresses, which demands all professors to act as facilitators in an
interactive framework.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Preparation
  • 241
  • Seminar
  • 34
  • Total
  • 275
Credit
10 ECTS
Type of assessment
Oral defence, 20 minutes
Oral exam based on synopsis, 20 minutes
Exam registration requirements

In order to attend the oral examination, it is a prerequisite to hand in the synopsis before the specified deadline. The deadline is agreed upon with the course lecturer.

Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
External censorship
Exam period

The Faculty of Social Sciences plans this exam.

Re-exam

The Faculty of Social Sciences plans this exam.