IPACST: The Role of Intellectual Property to Accelerate Sustainability Transitions

IPACST develops evidence-based insights into intellectual property (IP) models and how they can help to accelerate sustainability transition. Effective transitions to sustainability are urgent global challenges, however require innovation with complex diffusion and adoption processes. The role of IP and IP rights (IPR) in sustainability transitions remains insufficiently understood. Certain IP models can delay transitions by blocking innovative technologies, increasing transaction costs and prolonging lifecycles of existing technologies. With appropriate IP models knowledge sharing can flourish, technology transfer becomes accelerated enabling collaborative learning and sustainable nurturing innovations.

The project will build interdisciplinary research that furthers our understanding of transition processes with a focus on the role of IP models (e.g. patent pools and pledges, licensing, open source) and sustainability. The research team will work with relevant stakeholders in ecosystems for sustainable innovations including companies, policymakers, funding organizations and start-up incubators, to select and govern suitable IP models for sustainable business models, supporting sustainable technologies, production and consumption patterns.

Based on the results, IPACST will provide best-practice cases, guidelines, and training for key stakeholders such as policy makers, businesses and educational institutions. This may enable selecting appropriate IP models and accelerate the creation and diffusion of sustainable innovations.

Project leader: Prof. E. Eppinger, Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (Germany)

Principal investigators: Dr. A. Gurtoo, Indian Institute of Science (India), Prof. N. Bocken, Lund University (Sweden), Dr. F. Tietze, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom)