| Time: | March 5, 2026, 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. |
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| Event language: | English |
| Meeting mode: | online |
| Venue: | University of Stuttgart | IRIS Link: Click here to join IRIS Insights on March 5 |
| Download as iCal: |
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The Social Ecology of Ideas. Measuring Creative Destruction in Science and Technology
How do new ideas emerge — and why do others disappear? In this online talk, IRIS-Member Professor Raphael Heiberger introduces a new social-ecological theory of ideas, examining how concepts in biomedicine are born, compete, and fade over time.
Drawing on 1.3 million patents and 36 million scientific papers, his research uses advanced AI methods to trace the life cycles of ideas and map the technological “niches” in which they develop. The findings show that new ideas tend to arise in young, expanding, and interdisciplinary fields, whereas older, inward-looking areas are more prone to conceptual decline. Connections to other domains stimulate experimentation — but also accelerate the disappearance of ideas.
Crucially, not all idea dynamics are equal: inventions built on genuinely new concepts are far more likely to become breakthroughs, whereas those tied to fading ideas rarely achieve major impact.
Join us to explore how innovation is shaped not only by individual creativity but by the broader social and technological environments in which ideas evolve.
This is a WebEx talk to which everyone who is interested is cordially invited. It will take place in English. Our IRIS speaker, Prof. Maria Wirzberger, will moderate it. Following Prof. Raphael Heiberger's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. We look forward to active participation.
About the Speaker: Raphael H. Heiberger is Professor of Computational Social Science at the University of Stuttgart. His research integrates natural language processing, social network analysis, and machine learning to develop new perspectives on social phenomena. His work has been published in leading journals, including the American Sociological Review, the European Sociological Review, Social Networks, and Political Analysis. He has received research funding from the European Commission, the Fulbright Commission, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
[Picture: SRF IRIS / S. Brandes]
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