1st Nordic Conference on Injo, Helsinki 25 Sep

The 1st Nordic Conference on Innovation Journalism will be taking place at the Communications Research Centre, University of Helsinki, Finland on Sep 25. It is supported by Helsingin Sanomat Foundation and Sitra, who are funding the Finnish Innovation Journalism initiative. These are the funding organizations who have made it possible for Finnish journalists and researchers to come to theVINNOVA-Stanford research center of innovation journalism.

I will be keynoting the conference, so if you are going I will see you there! The conference program and registration is available on the conference website.

Here is an excerpt:

1st Nordic Conference on

Innovation Journalism:

Weather-casters of Future?

The Role of Journalism in Understanding Technological and Social Innovations

In recent years “innovation” has emerged as a key concept in which many issues of modern societies – solution to social problems, belief on economic growth, survival in international competition – seem to culminate. Central to the discussions on innovation have been the idea that traditional institutional boundaries between different sectors of society, such as politics, economy, culture and technology, have to be crossed more than before. This means that journalistic practises have had to become more flexible than before. The concept of Innovation Journalism was coined in 2003 by David Nordfors. For Innovation Journalism the process of innovation itself is the central concept, treating business, technology, politics, etc. as nested components of a news story. It is a ‘horizontal’ beat, spanning across the old beats, reporting on innovation processes and innovation ecosystems. Elina Noppari and Erkki Kauhanen have further defined innovation journalism as a kind of future journalism involving also cultural and social innovations emerging from outside of the ‘official innovation structures’.

Communication Research Centre CRC is pleased to invite everyone who thinks journalism and innovation is important to a one-day confence to discuss the role of journalism in understanding technological and social innovations.

Time: Friday, 25 September 2009, from 9 am until 5 pm

Venue: University of Helsinki Main Building, Fabianinkatu 33, Helsinki

Keynote speakers are Professor Kevin G. Barnhurst and David Nordfors, Executive director of the Research Center of Innovation Journalism, Stanford University.

Further contributors include Jyrki Alkio, Ulrik Haagerup, Risto Kunelius, Hannu Nieminen, Vilma Luoma-aho, Turo Uskali and Esa Väliverronen.

Conference language is English.

There is no registration fee. However, the number of participants is restricted due to limited seating; therefore, participation