Paul Gray Award for Professor Frederik Möller

Professor Frederik Möller from the Institute of Business Informatics (Data-Driven Enterprise Division) at Technische Universität Braunschweig has received the ‘Paul Gray Award for the Most Thought-Provoking Paper’ together with Professors Thorsten Schoormann and Magnus R. P. Hansen. The prize, which has been awarded since 2015, commemorates Paul Gray, the founding editor of the journal ‘Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS)’, and annually honours the most discussed paper. The selection is made by a committee comprising current and former editors-in-chief of CAIS. The prize is regarded as one of the most prestigious awards in the field of business informatics.

Professor Frederik Möller. Photo credits: Kristina Rottig/TU Braunschweig

In their paper ‘Advancing Design Knowledge Reuse: A Framework for Circular Design Principles’, the authors address a central challenge in design science research: the reuse and further development of design knowledge. Designers must build on existing knowledge, reuse it in a different context and reflect on the insights gained in the process in order to advance the state of the art, according to the researchers. Although existing knowledge is regarded as the foundation for innovation, research to date has shown a surprisingly low utilisation of existing design artefacts and concepts. This is precisely where the work comes in.

The authors apply established principles of the circular economy to research practice and develop a framework for so-called ‘Circular Design Principles’. This concept expands existing approaches to the reuse of knowledge in three ways: it integrates a life-cycle approach to design knowledge, systematically examines the process of reuse, and further refines the concept of reuse itself. “In keeping with the tradition of cumulative research, we aim to support researchers in operationalising and supplementing existing knowledge. Furthermore, we aim to support them in positioning their work as a form of reuse research.”

Publication:
Schoormann, T., Hansen, M. R., & Möller, F. (2025). Advancing Design Knowledge Reuse: A Framework for Circular Design Principles. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 56, 430–460.
https://doi.org/10.17705/1CAIS.05618