Call for Contributions: Research for Impact in Digital Innovation, RIDI 2026, June 7 2026; in conjunction with the 39th Bled eConference

We kindly invite you to join us at the Fourth International Workshop on Research for Impact in Digital Innovation (RIDI). Since 2023, the workshop series is a collaboration between the HU University of Applied Sciences (Utrecht, The Netherlands), Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences (Germany), HAN UAS (Arnhem, The Netherlands), and TU Wien (Austria) in order to foster exchange on impact of digital innovation: its nature, evaluation, stimulation, and through examples of projects and activities connecting practice, research, and education.

The workshop will be an onsite event held on June 7, 2026 in conjunction with the 39th Bled eConference (Bled, Slovenia). It will be a mix of presentations, project reports and interactive workshops in order to continue the discussion as it took place during the previous RIDI workshops. We are happy to receive suggestions for working sessions, position papers, short presentations or project reports that will fuel the discussion.

Objective

The fourth European workshop on Research for Impact in Digital Innovation (RIDI) aims to bring together practitioners and researchers who are working in the area of digital innovation.

Topics like Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation are currently driving initiatives in industry; not only to introduce new technologies but also to gain significant business benefits. Hence, technology is not just seen as a means on its own but as one factor among others. Each digitally innovative project needs to incorporate the context of an organisation (market, customer segments, etc.) as well as its organisation and staff members. Challenges during such an endeavour are manifold. As a result, there is an increased need in practice for more explicit guidance in terms of lessons learned, methods, approaches, principles, and design concepts. 

Developing, such explicit guidance through conceptualizing and operationalizing entails a need for demand-driven research and education, requiring synergies between applied research and practice. It also sparks a need for research methods that strike an effective balance between real-world needs and contexts, with appropriate scientific rigour. 

In line with this, the workshop aims to provide a platform for individuals contributing to the development of explicit guidance for digital innovation by using research methods. This specifically includes practitioners and researchers within the context of technical and applied sciences. The platform fosters exchange by discussing success stories and experiences from the field together with methodological approaches. It, furthermore, aims to provide a base to shape a research agenda, together with corresponding methods, to enable research in practice.

Topics

The workshop specifically addresses “research in practice” from various areas, including (but not limited to): computer science, business informatics, (management) information systems and enterprise architecture. Example topics are:

• research and development (R&D) projects,
• lighthouse cases from applied science,
• knowledge representation and management for applied research and practice,
• applied research in education,
• responsible innovation,
• perspectives on impact, impact measurement, and impact evaluation,
• methodological view incorporating “practice” as a first-class citizen,
• cases from practice “involving” research without “being” research,
• research happening without being scientific,
• applied science methodology,
• non-scientific R&D and how it meets science,
• targeted and structured literature review,
• design science and action design research, and
• design patterns: authoring, use, and support.

Workshop organisation

• Pascal Ravesteijn, Utrecht UAS, The Netherlands (local organisation, contact)
• Jürgen Jung, Frankfurt UAS, Germany (contact)
• Stijn Hoppenbrouwers, HAN UAS, Arnhem, The Netherlands
• Guido Ongena, Utrecht UAS, The Netherlands
• Henderik Proper, TU Wien, Austria
• Emanuele Laurenzi, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland

Preliminary Agenda

We are collecting contributions until March 15, 2026 and will publish the final agenda immediately afterwards.

Contact

For workshop proposals, position papers, presentations or any other questions or suggestions, you can contact the organisers directly via email:

• Pascal Ravesteijn: pascal.ravesteijn@hu.nl
• Jürgen Jung: juergen.jung@fra-uas.de

We are looking forward to meeting you in Bled!