Call for papers for a CIJ Special Issue on 'Health Innovation and Entrepreneurship'

2025-05-13

Call for Papers for the CERN IdeaSquare Journal of Experimental Innovation (CIJ)

Special Issue on Health Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Submission deadline: October 1st, 2025

 

Special Issue Editors:

Bettina Maisch, Professor for Entrepreneurship, HM Munich University for Applied Sciences and Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship

Pieter Vandekerckhove, Assistant Professor of Health Entrepreneurship, Delft Centre of Entrepreneurship, Delft University of Technology

Steven Howard, Associate Professor, Executive Master of Science in Health Administration Program Director, University of Alabama at Birmingham, School of Health Professions, Health Services Administration Department

Louis J. Koizia, Consultant Physician and Geriatrician, Imperial College and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, St. Mary's Hospital, London

Benjamin H.L Harris Lecturer in Medical Sciences, St.Catherine’s College, University of Oxford. Visiting Professor, Department of Psychosocial Rehabilitation, Medical University of Łódź. Visiting Researcher, Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London. Thouron Scholar, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Luc de Witte, Professor of Technology for Healthcare at The Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands

Christian Hanshans, Professor for Medicine and BioMedical Engineering, Head of BioMed Labs, HM Munich University for Applied Sciences, University Hospital Würzburg

About the Special Issue

In the scientific spirit of CERN, this Call for Papers focuses on one of the most urgent and transformative experiments in human history: Health Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The global healthcare and well-being sector is facing unprecedented challenges with increasing prevalence of chronic diseases and workforce crises. Digital health investments reached a record in 2022, reflecting the urgent need for scalable, technology-driven solutions. Yet, these investments are not sufficiently creating value in the healthcare systems for key stakeholders like patients and care professionals. We need a healthcare innovation renaissance. How can we transition to more effective healthcare innovation to ensure equitable, sustainable, and impactful healthcare solutions for the future?

We need to learn from bold, experimental and disruptive approaches in this highly multidisciplinary field. We counter increasing economic and political pressures favoring siloed and disciplinary research. The purpose of this special issue is to be a safe harbor, where research that bridges different fields and disciplines can flourish. (ref CERN Manifesto https://e-publishing.cern.ch/index.php/CIJ/Manifesto)

We invite scholars to come forward with avant-garde insights for innovation and entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial thinking e.g. new ways of managing resources effectively, new business models, new ways of interdisciplinary collaboration, and new ways to integrate patient-centered approaches to improve health outcomes. We aim to foster a dialogue among scholars and practitioners and propose actionable solutions for improving global health.

  • Health Innovation & Entrepreneurship Education:
    • General Health Entrepreneurship Education: Designing and implementing health innovation curricula and best practices in teaching health entrepreneurship. Case studies of health-focused accelerators and incubators in academic settings, Experiential learning methods for healthcare entrepreneurs
    • Digital Health Literacy and Education: Teaching digital health skills to healthcare professionals and students, Gamification and immersive learning for digital health adoption, AI-driven personalized learning in medical education
    • Entrepreneurial Mindset Development in Healthcare: Cultivating innovation and risk-taking in medical and healthcare training, Role of business schools and interdisciplinary collaboration in health entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship education for non-traditional healthcare entrepreneurs (e.g., nurses, pharmacists, caregivers)
    • Online and Hybrid Learning in Health Innovation: The effectiveness of MOOCs, online platforms, and hybrid education in health entrepreneurship, Use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) in medical and entrepreneurial training, Collaborative online learning models for health innovation ecosystems
    • Equity and Inclusion in Health Entrepreneurship Education: Addressing disparities in access to health entrepreneurship education, Training programs for entrepreneurs in low-resource settings, Gender and diversity perspectives in health innovation education
  • The Role of Universities and Research Institutions in Health Innovation: University spin-offs and commercialization of medical research, Academic-industry partnerships for healthcare innovation, Research translation and knowledge transfer in healthcare settings, Academic entrepreneurship, University spin-offs, and translational research in health sciences.
  • Health Entrepreneurship and Startups: New venture creation in healthcare, challenges and success factors for health startups, impact of accelerators/incubators in health innovation.
  • Mental Health and Well-being Entrepreneurship crossing disciplines: Innovative interventions in mental health, mindfulness technologies, and digital mental health solutions. Including integrative medicine approaches including mindfulness and creative innovations like arts, music, food.
  • Digital Health Innovations integration experiments and failures:g. lessons from AI-driven healthcare, telemedicine, remote monitoring, digital therapeutics, and blockchain in healthcare.
  • Business Models for Health Innovation: Sustainable financing models, health impact investing, public-private partnerships, and innovative pricing strategies for health solutions (e.g. new revenue strategies, or payment models).
  • Patient-centered innovation: Co-design and participatory approaches in healthcare, behavioral interventions, and patient empowerment through entrepreneurship.
  • Health Tech and Emerging Markets: Scaling innovations in low-resource settings, frugal innovation, and barriers to adoption in developing economies.
  • Healthcare Workforce and Innovation: tackling burnout and shortage of workforce e.g. with upskilling health professionals, entrepreneurship in medical education, and leadership in healthcare culture transformation.
  • Experimental and Data-Driven Approaches in Health Innovation: Applications of design thinking, user-driven experimentation, and real-world evidence generation in health entrepreneurship.
  • Resource and process management overcoming fragmented care pathways: new management strategies, team innovations, workflow or supply-chain strategies to tackle overcrowding and a better patient experience across the fragmented health journeys between health organizations and care professionals.
  • Innovation processes to integrate and scale science-driven product-services: deeptech innovations e.g. biotech, -omics molecular approaches, genetic research, and machine learning applications struggle to create value in health systems and deliver precision medicine.

 

About the Journal of Experimental Innovation (CIJ)

The CERN IdeaSquare Journal of Experimental Innovation (CIJ) aims to communicate thought-provoking, contemporary, and latest findings in experimentation-driven innovation research. CIJ is an interdisciplinary, open online journal that publishes empirical and theoretical research to push the boundaries of various topics around in-situ experimental innovation.

CIJ encourages research that is between and even beyond disciplinary lines and welcomes research advancing innovation process methodologies, tools, educational approaches, knowledge exchange, management, and policy. CIJ intends to be intellectually challenging in the name of true scientific curiosity and to cultivate evidence-based, novel insights to advance understanding of how new knowledge and basic research turn into use for society through innovation.

In this special issue, the contributions should be aligned with the values and tradition of the Journal stated in their Manifest:

BOLD: CIJ is an outlet for unconventional, early-stage, thought-provoking experimentation-driven research. We aim to foster new innovation methodologies, tools, educational approaches, and experiments to push the boundaries of creativity to drive societal innovation.

INTEGRATIVE: CIJ is an interdisciplinary journal orchestrated by interdisciplinary teams and guided by the principles of open science and open innovation.

OPEN: CIJ provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. CIJ encourages (but does not require) the disclosure of data associated with the manuscripts to support and facilitate scientific work to build on existing knowledge.

CONNECTING: CIJ is interested in understanding the impact that knowledge can produce within science and society. Taking in learnings from real experiences to inform future theory and practice alike.

EXPERIMENTAL: At CIJ, we are intrigued by where good ideas come from and how we can systemize those processes. Authors are invited to take different angles to their research, presenting solutions, innovations, design models, and methods involving individuals, teams, or organizational experiences.

USEFUL: CIJ encourages replication studies and remains a resource center for researchers and scientists who wish to further develop previously collected data and learnings. At CIJ, authors are urged to consider the applicability and relevance of their outputs for future research.

MISFIT: CIJ is a place where high-risk high-gain research is welcome and encouraged. Research that doesn’t fit in any existing discipline either because it is between—or simply beyond—disciplines. Everything that challenges the status quo and could inspire future generations in the true spirit of scientific curiosity.

Submission procedure

The submitted manuscripts should follow the CIJ guidelines and use the CIJ template
(they can be found at https://e-publishing.cern.ch/index.php/CIJ/about/submissions#authorGuidelines ) containing the manuscript outline and submission information.

When ready to submit please choose the dedicated section entitled 'Submission to the Special Issue 'Health Innovation and Entrepreneurship'

Timetable

1 May 2025                          Call issued

1 October  2025                  Deadline for submission

31 December 2025              Reviews returned to authors

15 Februar 2026                  Revised papers submitted

15 March 2026                    2nd reviews returned to authors

15 April 2026                       Revised papers submitted

April 2026                            Special issue published

Meet the Guest Editors Contact

For further information in case of questions concerning the Special Issue, please contact:
Bettina Maisch, Special Issue Editor (bettina.maisch@hm.edu