CONFERENCE THEME: Sociocybernetics and Innovation

Sociocybernetics is about preconditions, ways, and consequences of impacts in social entities. Innovation is every novelty accepted as beneficial by its users or consumers, be it technological or non-technological. Social innovation aims at satisfying new needs not taken care of by markets while economic innovation concerns new ways of production or exploiting markets. Social as well as economic innovations are usually the result of a combination of organizational (managerial), technological, and institutional innovations.Only one percent of patented inventions, usually technological inventions, become innovations. An unknown small percentage of the other inventions become suggestions and about seven percent of those become innovations. Technological development is interdependent with organizational development and they are both interdependent with social development from the local to the global level of world society. Innovation, the chance of success of which is eight percent, is at the core of all development. Different local, regional, and national communities are differently supportive of invention-innovation processes and to the diffusion of their results. Inventions normally become innovations in coalition with entrepreneurship, and they fight routinism as a characteristic of social groups and social actors. Thus innovations lie at the core of the current growing difference between the 20% of the affluent and the 80% of the poor and relatively poor of humankind of today.

At all levels, from local to global, it is not clear, to what extent an innovation is indeed beneficial beyond evident short-term benefits. Side-effects and feed-backs across a variety of different social subsystems, long-term effects affecting future generations, and phenomena of synergy and emergence may easily produce un-expected, un-recognized, and un-wanted results endangering the sustainability of social systems and society at large. In the same direct or indirect way, however, innovations may indeed provide new solutions to the problems of human beings and society. E.g., globalization may be both a progress and neo-colonization at the same time.

Sociocybernetics as a discipline provides an adequate holistic theoretical and methodological framework to study the complexity of innovation processes and their effects on sustainability from the local to the global level. Papers are invited which deal with any one of these phenomena while being concerned with with innovation. Preferred are papers which take an explicit holistic and interdisciplinary approach and which take into account feedback, communication, and reflexivity. As the conference will address a wider scientific public from Slovenia and neighboring countries, applied studies will be of special interest.

VENUE AND ACCOMMODATION:

University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia (EU). See maps
The closest airports are in Maribor (with a daily connection with Paris), in Graz, Austria (60 km), and Ljubljana, Slovenia (150 km). Trains connect Maribor also with Vienna, Austria (250 km), Budapest, Hungary (220 km), Zagreb, Croatia (110 km), and indirectly with all places in Europe.
There are student dormitories, a university hotel, and a number of other hotels in Maribor.

CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION:

To present a paper, membership in RC51 is preferable.
Conference fees are for:
- RC51 Non-members EURO 200 (250 EURO if no paper is presented)
- RC51 affiliated members (non-ISA): EURO 150
- RC51 regular members in good standing (ISA and RC51): EURO 100
In special cases (e.g. students) exemptions can be granted upon request.
The fees can be paid on the spot or by bank transfer (in Euro and with all charges to the participant).Data will be provided to participants after registration.

ABSTRACTS AND THE REVIEW PROCESS:

Abstracts for papers should be 500 to 1000 word detailed abstracts for the review process and the definitive assignment to a particular session. In addition, 250 word regular abstracts are needed for publication on our website. All abstracts should be sent to the Chair of the Abstracts Committee, Eva Buchinger <eva.buchinger@arcs.ac.at>, to Matjaz Mulej <mulej@uni-mb.si>, and to the President of RC51, Bernd R. Hornung <hornung@med.uni-marburg.de>. The Abstracts Committee will review the detailed abstracts and will decide about acceptance. Possibly it will suggest improvements and modifications, in particular in order to ensure compliance with the conference theme. Abstracts have to deal with one of the major subjects mentioned above and should fit well with the overall objectives of this conference.

DEADLINES:

March 31, 2005: 500-1000 word detailed abstracts and 250 word regular abstracts.
April 30, 2005: Notification of acceptance.
May, 20, 2005: Definitive registration and booking.
June, 20, 2005: Full paper.

CONTACTS AND INFORMATION:

For any further questions and information you may consult the RC 51 website at <http://www.unizar.es/sociocybernetics/>. This may already answer many of your questions, or you may also directly contact any of the members of the International Organizing Committee or the chairman of the National Organizing Committee.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:

Felix Geyer, Honorary President RC51 <geyer@xs4all.nl>
Bernd R. Hornung, President RC51 <hornung@med.uni-marburg.de>
Vessela Misheva, Vice-President RC51 <Vessela.Misheva@soc.uu.se>
Richard E. Lee, Secretary RC51 <rlee@binghamton.edu>
Eva Buchinger, Chair Abstracts Committee <eva.buchinger@arcs.ac.at>
Soeren Brier <sbr@kvl.dk>
Arne Collen <acollen@saybrook.edu>
Chaime Marcuello <chaime@unizar.es>
Bernard Scott <B.C.E.scott@rmcs.cranfield.ac.uk>
Karl-Heinz Simon <simon@usf.uni-kassel.de>
Cor Van Dijkum <c.vandijkum@fss.uu.nl>

NATIONAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:

Matjaz Mulej mulej@uni-mb.si; Tel.: + 386 2 22 90 262; Fax: + 386 2 25 16 681

If you do not intend to join the discussion in Maribor, please forward the information to your friends and colleagues, whom you find able and interested to contribute.