Innoage : Innovation and Product Development for Aging Users

Germany and Japan have particularly been affected by a rapid demographic change. The accelerated development of an aging and shrinking population has caused many changes, for instance, in customer needs and demands. These affect the value creation in both B2C and B2B markets, consequently offering opportunities to develop age-based products and service innovations in emerging lead markets. In this context, this research project aims to foster our understanding of innovation and product and service development for aging populations. To this end, we combine the expertise of four management institutes at Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), and a wide range of research methods, such as structural equation modeling, social network analysis, and agent-based simulation. Our results and experiences will form the basis for a grounded, full application for the funding of an international research training group (IRTG), ideally from the German Science Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) in cooperation with a leading Japanese university (Tokyo Institute of Technology). In addition, we will disseminate the results of this research via workshops, conferences, dissertations, and contributions to highly ranked journals