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Prospering without growth: Science, Technology and Innovation in a post-growth era

Project description

Examining the role of innovation in a post-growth era

The narrative of infinite economic growth has overlong conditioned the role of innovation. This context of technological determinism and productivism overshadows the socially constructed character of technological development, its political function and its potential to enable both fair societies and technological dystopias. The EU-funded PROSPERA project will challenge the paradigm of endless growth drawing its arguments from the hypothesis that untangling innovation from growth is crucial to imagining a post-growth era. PROSPERA will explore new narratives for innovation that would accordingly change and increase the scope of the innovation concept itself in cultural and institutional transformation, and subsequently in social life and social order.

Objective

The feasibility and desirability of endless economic growth is increasingly being questioned by scholars and activists. While envisioning alternative economic models is key to assure the sustainability and wellbeing of present and future generations, few studies have analysed what might be the role of innovation in a post-growth era. Innovating has become the imperative for the survival and expansion of any form of organisation. But this innovate or die mania underpins assumptions such as technological determinism and productivism - that neglect the socially constructed character of technological development, its politics and its capacity to enable just and equitable societies but also dystopian technocratic futures. This project posits that untangling innovation from growth is key to imagining a post-growth era. If growth is going to be unsustainable, we need new narratives for innovation that would accordingly also have to change and increase the scope of the innovation concept itself, beyond technology, into cultural and institutional change, and indeed social life and social order. Organizations in particular capitalist enterprises - are the core of modern industrial societies but are also one of the places in which the discourse of growth is legitimised and constantly reproduced. However, they can also be the places in which people can start to build the capacity for developing alternatives to challenges the growth ideology. But how organizations would look like in a different paradigm, in a system that is not based on and doesnt not rely on endless growth? Under which conditions STI without growth would be able to flourish? What levels of technological complexity can we reach in a non-growing economy? What policies, infrastructures and organizational forms are needed or are more likely to facilitate this new paradigm of STI? These are questions, rarely asked by innovation, management and organization scholars, that the proposed project will address.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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ERC-STG - Starting Grant

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2020-STG

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Host institution

UNIVERSIDAD DE VIGO
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 424 375,00
Address
LG CAMPUS LAGOAS MARCOSENDE
36310 Vigo Pontevedra
Spain

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Region
Noroeste Galicia Pontevedra
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 424 375,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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