The User Innovation Research Initiative is a research program which aims to deepen our understanding of the phenomenon of user innovation and is hosted by the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics & Business.

(User Innovation Initative Logo created by Peter Vandor)

Nearly three decades of research into the sources of innovation, pioneered and still driven by Eric von Hippel (MIT), has revealed that users can be surprisingly creative and innovative.  In many cases, the users themselves – and not manufacturers – are the originators of new products and services.

• Empirical studies, for example in the fields of computers, petroleum processing, the semiconductor industry and many sports industries like snowboarding, windsurfing, or kayaking have shown that the most important innovations in the evolution of industries were originated by users.
• User innovation is not a rare occurrence.  The share of user innovators in the fields studied to date range from 10% (outdoor consumer products) to almost 40% (extreme sporting communities).
• The advent of the internet has propelled user innovativeness, as it is now much easier for users to interact with other users. The results of such global user networks and communities include open source software or Wikipedia, to name just two examples.

Companies and academics alike are increasingly searching for ways to reclaim the territory of user innovation for innovation management and product development.

Some User Innovations:

Mountainbike      Open Source     Semiconductor   Petroleum
                           Software Linux  Industry            Processing

Nikolaus Franke
WU Vienna

Christopher Lettl

WU Vienna

INITIATIVE MANAGER

Katharina Braun
WU Vienna
(for the area of research in User Communities)

INTEREST IN COLLABORATION?

We are highly interested in collaborating with scholars as well as practitioners with an interest in one of the focus areas of our User Innovation Research Initiative.

• For scholars: If you are interested in sharing your ideas, discussing and presenting your work, or launching joint projects please feel free to contact Nikolaus Franke (nikolaus.franke@wu-wien.ac.at) or one of the initiative managers (see side bar) for further information.
• For practitioners: If you are interested in collaborating with or sponsoring the User Innovation Research Initiative group, there are many different ways to do so. Please feel free to contact either Nikolaus Franke (nikolaus.franke@wu-wien.ac.at) or one of the initiative managers (see side bar) for further information.

Susanne Roiser
WU Vienna
(for the area of Lead User research)

INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH PARTNERS

Eric von Hippel
MIT Sloan

FURTHER RELEVANT LINKS

A 'cornerstone' book about user innovation is 'Democratizing Innovation' by Prof. Eric von Hippel (MIT). A free download is available at: http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/books.htm

A collection of relevant research papers on user innovation is available at: http://userinnovation.mit.edu/

A collection of research papers on the phenomenon of open source software (innovative user communities) is available at: http://opensource.mit.edu/

A good website on mass customization (in German) is
www.mass-customization.de

A good website on open innovation (in German) is
www.openinnovators.de

Cornelius Herstatt TU Hamburg-Harburg

Sonali K. Shah
University of Washington

Mag.a Julia Bauer

Mag.a Katharina Braun

Mag. Thomas Funke

Dr. Ulrike Kaiser

Dr. Peter Keinz

Mag. Florian Schirg

Dr. Philipp Türtscher

Mag. Peter Vandor, MIM (CEMS)