IASC Workshop ‘Conceptualizing the New Commons’ is under way

An exciting lineup of keynote speakers and paper presenters has been secured by the organizers of the IASC Workshop on Conceptualizing the New Commons, Oldenburg, Germany, 6-8 June 2018.

Jack Kloppenburg, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Community and Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison kicks-off the workshop with the keynote on Global Progress, Promise and Possibilities of Open Source Seed. Prof. Kloppenburg explains how the Open Source Seed Initiative is working in the USA, one among many emerging projects designed to free the seed from corporate control and enclosure through the application of “copyleft” methods.

Brett Frischmann, Professor of Law, Business and Economics at Villanova University, Pennsylvania and a renowned scholar in intellectual property and internet law, leading editor of Governing Knowledge Commons published by the Oxford University Press in 2014, presents his most recent thoughts on Conceptualization and Remaining Challenges in Governing Knowledge Commons.

Silke Helfrich of Commons-Institut e.V. and Commons Strategies Group, an author and editor of several books on the commons and independent activist of the commons, talks about the commons as a life-form, worldview and set of social practices and attitudes, and the necessity to look Beyond the Familiar Categories for Understanding Commons.

Insa Theesfeld, Professor at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, IASC Regional Coordinator for Europe, greets the participants with her welcome speech, and outlines the latest developments taking place within the IASC community with particular focus on IASC Europe.

We remind that this thematic workshop is an outcome of collaboration between the IASC Europe and RightSeeds project led by Stefanie Sievers-Glotzbach, Professor at the University of Oldenburg, Germany.   RightSeeds is a project jointly implemented by the University of Oldenburg, Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW) and the University of Gottingen, and funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research. You can see detailed information about the workshop, including the full list of presenters and topics covered within the program here.