grandissimo Mark! Oh now I feel much better :) Big hug Franci Francesca Melillo Assistant Professor SKEMA Business School, Université Côte d’Azur (GREDEG) Campus Lille Tel.: + 33 (0) 3 59 82 22 41 francesca.melillo@skema.edu<mailto:francesca.melillo@skema.edu> [cid:image002.jpg@01D5626B.2D26FC10] On 11 Mar 2021, at 13:50, DRUID21 <druid@druid.dk<mailto:druid@druid.dk>> wrote: Dear Francesca Melillo As vaccines give us reason for some cautious optimism, DRUID now announces the DRUID21 Conference in Copenhagen, October 18-20, 2021. It is about time we have something to look forward to. We cross our virtual fingers and hope to see old and new friends of DRUID face-to-face in October. Kind regards Mark Lorenzen Director, DRUID __________________________ DRUID21 Copenhagen, Denmark, October 18-20, 2021 
FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS Submission deadline: June 1, 2021 Since 1996, DRUID has become one of the world's premier academic conferences on innovation and the dynamics of structural, institutional and geographic change. DRUID is proud to invite senior and junior scholars to participate and contribute with a paper to DRUID21, hosted by Copenhagen Business School. Presenting distinguished plenary speakers, a range of parallel paper sessions, and an attractive social program, the conference aims at mapping theoretical, empirical and methodological advances, contributing novel insights, and help identifying scholarly positions, divisions, and common grounds in current scientific controversies within the field. Please note that due to the global COVID-19 health crisis, DRUID21 is scheduled to take place in October, rather than its usual time in June. The conference will only take place if travel and health regulations permit. Please see below for registration and cancellation deadlines. CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS Keynotes delivered by top scholars from innovation studies, management, economic geography, and numerous other research fields. DRUID DEBATES with outstanding scholars exchanging opinions in a heated and entertaining setting, and the conference audience opposing or supporting their standpoints. PAPER SESSIONS presenting peer reviewed papers with previously unpublished research, all with engaged session chairs and carefully appointed discussants. DRUID21 invites paper submissions on innovation, entrepreneurship and other aspects of structural, institutional and geographic change, such as • Open innovation, search strategies and knowledge sourcing • Markets for technology and knowledge labor
 • Digital markets, platforms and eco-systems • Entrepreneurship and growth
 • Creativity, R&D management and organizational behavior
 • Scientific knowledge production and university-industry interaction • Local, regional and global geographies of innovation, innovation networks and connectedness
 • Institutional, social and frugal innovation and entrepreneurship
 • Eco-innovation, sustainability, inequality and inclusion In particular, DRUID invites papers with new, mixed, or multi-disciplinary theoretical approaches or innovative methods that will benefit from the open-ended discussions at DRUID. BEST PAPER AWARDS. Accepted papers authored or co-authored by doctoral students will be considered for the Steven Klepper Award for Best Young Scholar Paper while all papers accepted for the conference will be considered for the DRUID Best Paper Award.
 The grand DRUID DINNER is known for its excellent food and high fun factor. DRUID DISCOVERIES excursions will make the most out of Copenhagen and invite participants on trips to the most happening parts of city. DRUID DECADENCE. A DRUID institution, the afterparty will find DRUIDs dining, drinking and dancing the night away in a clandestine location. PDWs Professional development workshops (PDWs) are focused, user driven sessions offering a way of sharing ideas, knowledge and expertise with peers in the DRUID community and develop new ideas and projects. PDWs at DRUID21 take place 9.00-12.00 on October 18, 2021. All participants to DRUID21 can propose a PDW focused on a specific research subfield and/or targeting a specific group, e.g. PhD students, junior faculty, empiricists, theorists, etc. Proposals must contain 1) a max. 2 page description of the activity planned for the workshop; 2) a tentative program with a duration of up to 3 hours; 3) the maximum number of participants for the workshop (rooms are available for 20 up to 75 participants); and 4) a list of confirmed speakers; 5) a brief CV of key applicant(s) and speakers. Please send proposals to at druid@druid.dk<mailto:druid@druid.dk> no later than July 1, 2021. Applicants will be notified of the decision by July 20, 2021, and all accepted PDWs will be advertised and included in the DRUID21 program. Speakers and participants must register for the DRUID21 conference. PAPER SUBMISSIONS AND DEADLINES DRUID21 provides an opportunity to take stock of our field and jointly to advance the research frontier. Thus, only previously unpublished research is eligible for presentation and the conference particularly invites research with new, mixed, and multi-disciplinary theoretical approaches and novel methods. Scholars who wish to present their research at the conference must upload a full paper (in PDF, anonymized) not exceeding 12,000 words (including notes, tables, appendices, list of references, etc.) through the website www.druid.dk<http://www.druid.dk> no later than June 1, 2021 (before midnight at the scholar’s location). Submission of a paper grants permission to DRUID to include it in the conference material and to place it temporarily on the conference website. DRUID reserves the right to use available software to control for plagiarism and to take appropriate action in severe cases. Details are available under Terms and Conditions on the website. All submissions undergo double-blinded reviews by at least two independent reviewers with respect to novelty, academic quality and the paper's relation to the themes of the conference. Decisions of paper acceptance are given August 1, 2021. No review or comments will be offered to the author or authors to supplement the decision. Papers not accepted for oral presentation at the conference may be accepted for presentation in a poster session. Authors of accepted papers/posters must pay the conference fee before September 1, 2021, or their paper/poster will automatically be removed from the conference program and website. Revised versions of accepted papers/posters may be uploaded until October 1, 2021. The final conference program will be available October 1, 2021. Authors may submit more than one paper but each conference participant will only be allowed to present one paper. Co-authored papers may be presented by any of the participating co-authors. REGISTRATION The DRUID website www.druid.dk<http://www.druid.dk> is open for registration from May 1, 2021. Besides registration, the conference fee includes the grand conference dinner, lunch on October 19 and 20, and coffee and snacks/fruit during breaks all days. Sponsorships from the partner universities have enabled an early-bird conference fee (applicable until September 1, 2021) of 510 EUR. After September 1, 2021, the latecomer conference fee will be 615 EUR. There is a permanent 50% discount for doctoral students. The website will remain open for payment of the conference fee until October 20, 2021. However, authors of accepted papers and posters must pay the fee before September 1, 2021, for their paper or poster to be included in the conference program. Cancellation policy: Cancellations of participation received before September 15 are refunded in full, before October 1 refunded with a 50 % reduction. If the conference is cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions, all registrations are refunded in full. PRACTICAL DRUID21 will only take place if it is possible to adhere to all standing COVID-19 health regulations. Popularly speaking, all DRUID conferences are carbon neutral. DRUID sources green conference materials, local vegetarian food and unbottled drinking water. Until lower-emission options of travel and other technologies are generally available DRUID offsets 2 tons of CO2 for each delegate (Verified Carbon Standard and Gold Standard), covering an estimated 120% of the conference’s carbon footprint of catering, venue, lodging and local transport, and 100% of all participants’ average carbon footprint for air travel to Copenhagen. Website and registration: www.druid.dk<http://www.druid.dk> Contact: druid@druid.dk<mailto:druid@druid.dk> Facebook: facebook.com/DRUIDsociety<http://facebook.com/DRUIDsociety> Twitter: twitter.com/DRUIDsociety<http://twitter.com/DRUIDsociety> Hashtag: #DRUID21 Videos: vimeo.com/DRUIDsociety<http://vimeo.com/DRUIDsociety> Photos: flickr.com/DRUIDsociety<http://flickr.com/DRUIDsociety> Mailing list: To subscribe, email druid@druid.dk<mailto:druid@druid.dk> with the word "Subscribe" in the subject field ---------------- For future reference please use the following email ID: 66674