Consistent with European tradition, we are organizing an April 2026 festschrift conference—in conjunction with special issues — to honor Henry Chesbrough and his research, timed to the year of Henry's 70th birthday.
Representatives of the three special issues/sections and the Festschrift conference will be attending these major innovation conferences in 2025:
The festschrift celebration is organized around three special issues/special sections:
a special issue of California Management Review entitled “Firm Openness and Industry Dynamics”
a special section of Industrial & Corporate Change entitled “Innovation Spanning Organizational and Disciplinary Boundaries: Contributions in Honor of Henry Chesbrough”
a special issue of R&D Management entitled “Open Innovation in Action: Strategies, Processes, Tools and the Evolving Practice of R&D Management”
All three of these are supported by a two-day festschrift conference in April 20-21, 2026, which is organized around three tracks (one for each call). Attendance at the conference is contingent upon a paper being accepted for one of the tracks.
A single conference is being held to help develop submissions for each of these three publications. All three share the same submission deadline (February 1, 2026). Presenters are free to attend sessions in either track, and plenary and social events will span all tracks.
However, the three calls are significantly different. Authors should read each Call for Papers carefully before submitting, as few (if any) topics would be suitable for submitting to more than one call. Also, the post-conference review processes differ based on the requirements of the respective journals.
To help us with our planning, we would appreciate it if you would register with us if you are interested in participating in the conference and either the special issue or special section. Also bookmark www.Chesbrough2026.com and check this site again for future updates.
Last updated June 13, 2025