Seminar on Productive Knowledge: Sustaining Massively-Multiplayer Innovation

Abstract

Governments and universities are pouring money into more ‘practical’ research – ‘translational’ medicine and ‘evidence-based’ policies in education, public health and economic development, for instance. But just translating or applying science rarely produces useful advances – and an inflexible adherence to the methods of natural or social scientists can do more harm than good. My pragmatic alternative is implicit in this syllabus (of a seminar I have been teaching since 2013) and in a companion Note on Productive Knowledge which provides the conceptual framework for the seminar.

Keywords: practical knowledge, innovation, coordination, creativity