The University of Western Sydney has awarded Eminent Researcher Fellowships to Professor Frank Gertsen, who will be hosted by Centre for Industry and Innovation Studies (CInIS). Professor Frank Gertsen is Professor in Innovation Management at the Center for Industrial Production, Aalborg University.

Frank Gertsen's research has focused on industrial development in a managerial and (intra)organisational perspective – popularly, the ‘soft side’ of engineering, which is often providing the ‘hardest’ results – or at least often a decisive prerequisite for the development and exploitation of technology-based business potentials. Another core-theme of his early work was ‘integration’ in relation to product innovation and customer/production order processing.

The research program to be undertaken as part of Professor Gertsen’s visits to UWS is a portfolio of projects around the theme of intra- and inter-firm approaches to managing innovation, in particular, the Discontinuous Innovation Project (DIP) – which deals with those innovation events occurring when something radically different arises, such as a new technology which may lead to entire industries emerging, transforming or disappearing.  Managing such events is a critical response capability for a firm. 
The Australian DIP research team, which also includes Ross Chapman, Terry Sloan, and Paul Hyland (at Central Queensland University) are currently conducting interview in the a network of associated firm.