Events

More Information: https://startupinitiative.maxplanckfoundation.org/start-up-school/

Pratap Devarapalli, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, TC Bernie School of Law, University of Queensland, Australia, who visited the Institute as a guest researcher in 2024 , will present his recently published book Bioinked Boundaries – Patenting 3D Bioprinted Tissues, Organs and Bioinks: An US, European and Australian Patent Law Perspective.

In his talk Dr. Devarapalli will especially emphasize the EU perspective.

Moderation: Prof. Dr. Hanns Ullrich

Abstract:
3D bioprinting, a technology that allows for the creation of human tissues and, potentially, entire organs, stands at the cutting edge of innovation in the life sciences. Three-dimensional bioprinting involves the use of bioinks, composed of living stem cells, to print complex organic structures layer by layer, mimicking the architecture of biological tissues. The implications for industrial applications are varied and the potential financial impact and human benefit are staggering. For example, in medicine bioprinted tissues could revolutionise drug testing, eliminate the need for animal models, and aim to offer solutions to the global organ shortage. Bioprinted tissues, much like genetically modified organisms, involve both natural materials and human intervention. However, as with many biotechnological advancements, the legal questions that surround bioprinting  are equally complex. Can a tissue printed from living cells be considered an invention? How much modification is required to transform a biological material into something that qualifies as patentable subject matter? And how should courts and patent offices balance the need to protect innovation with the need to ensure public access to important medical technologies?

More information will follow soon.

Contact person: Elisabeth Hofmeister

Open source is key to innovation yet is assumed to be done largely through intrinsic motivation. How can we incentivize it? In this paper, we examine the impact of a program providing monetary incentives to motivate innovators to contribute to open source. The Sponsors program was introduced by GitHub in May 2019 and enabled organizations and individuals alike to pay developers for their open source work. We study this program by collecting fine-grained data on nearly 100,000 GitHub users, their activities, and sponsorship events. We first, using a difference-in-differences approach, document two main effects. One, developers who opted into the program, an action that does not itself entail a financial reward, increased their output after the program’s launch. Two, the actual receipt of a financial sponsorship has a long-lasting negative effect on two measures of innovation –repository creation and community-oriented tasks– but not in coding effort. Despite a net positive effect on innovation, sponsorship appears to crowd out intrinsic motivation, shifting effort toward self-promoting activities. Results from a pre-registered survey and experiment reinforce these findings, showing that modest sponsorship (USD 20) deters collaborative contributions compared to no compensation, larger rewards (USD 1000), or company sponsorships.

Contact person: Daehyun Kim

Subscription to the invitation mailing list and more information on the seminar page.

Title and abstract will follow soon.

Contact person: Malte Toetzke

Subscription to the invitation mailing list and more information on the seminar page.

Title and abstract will follow.

Contact person: Elisabeth Hofmeister

Subscription to the invitation mailing list and more information on the seminar page.

On 15/16 December 2025, the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition will host the 8^th Research on Innovation, Science and Entrepreneurship Workshop (RISE8), an annual workshop for Ph.D. students and Junior Postdocs in Economics and Management. 

The goal of the RISE8 Workshop is to stimulate an in-depth discussion of a select number of empirical research papers. It offers Ph.D. students and Junior Postdocs an opportunity to present their work and to receive feedback.

Keynote speaker of the RISE8 Workshop is Matt Marx (Cornell University)

Get the Call for Papers RISE8.

For more information see RISE Workshop.