Vienna is widely known as the ‘City of Waltz’ and for its fancy balls in beautiful historical settings. Equally, the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is globally renowned as one of the leading research centers for open and user innovation (OUI).  Our inaugural ‘Research and Waltz’ last week managed to combine these two elements in a single event.

On the 10^th and 11^th of January, more than 10 researchers from WU as well as from universities in Switzerland, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands came together in Vienna to discuss ongoing research in the field of open and user innovation. On the first day, Marc Gruber (Vice President for Innovation at EPFL and full professor at the College of Management of Technology at EPFL) and Frank Piller (Professor of technology and innovation management at RWTH Aachen) gave keynote speeches on how to disseminate academic research to practice and on new research opportunities in the era of KI and Industry 4.0. This was followed by short presentations of all participants.

On the second day, participants met for individual discussions on future research projects. In the afternoon, the impressions gathered during the meetings were discussed in the setting of a traditional Viennese coffee house.

The highlight of the event – without doubt – was the joint visit to the WU Ball, held at the Imperial Palace. Research and Waltz was surely an event that our distinguished international guests will remember for a long time to come.

Research on OUI is truly multidisciplinary - covering disciplines such as innovation management, strategic management, organization design, marketing, intellectual property rights, entrepreneurship, and public policy. Thus, events such as Research & Waltz that serve to connect researchers from different backgrounds and disciplines help to further support the leading position our institute has in this research field.