The global innovation landscape is undergoing rapid transformation. Multinational corporations and policymakers alike face mounting challenges as deglobalisation, geopolitical rivalry, protectionism, and anti-immigration sentiment reshape the foundations of international R&D collaboration (Cui et al., 2023; Luo and Witt, 2022). Global networks that once depended on openness (Ascani et al., 2020; Kafouros and Forsans, 2012), talent mobility (Breschi et al., 2020; Lewin et al., 2009; Seo et al., 2020), and cross-border knowledge flows (Tsouri et al., 2021; Kurokawa et al., 2007; Liu, 2019) are increasingly constrained by trade restrictions, reshoring policies, and tightening migration regimes. These shifts are forcing both firms and governments to rethink how creativity and resilience can be sustained in an era of fragmentation and uncertainty (Witt et al., 2023).

This track bridges two critical perspectives — the organizational strategies of MNCs and the innovation policymaking of nations— to understand how creativity and resilience are maintained amidst structural shocks. The track seeks to engage researchers and practitioners examining how global firms reorganize their R&D networks, how governments redesign innovation policies, and how the interaction between the two shapes global innovation systems in this new era.

For multinational firms, sustaining creativity in R&D increasingly requires navigating barriers to international collaboration and talent mobility. The tightening of visa regimes, such as changes to the U.S. H-1B visa program, may limit access to global talent pools and constrain the diversity that fuels creativity and innovation. Similarly, growing national controls over data and technology flows are reshaping how MNCs manage distributed R&D teams. Firms must now rely more heavily on digital collaboration platforms and AI, local innovation ecosystems, and adaptive organizational cultures that can maintain creative performance under new constraints (Yücesan, 2025; Zahra and Hashai, 2025; Zhou et al., 2025).

For policymakers, the challenge is equally complex. Innovation policy must balance national interests with global interdependence: fostering technological competitiveness and resilience while avoiding isolation. Governments are increasingly using industrial policy, science diplomacy, entrepreneurship, and research funding mechanisms to strengthen domestic innovation capabilities and reduce vulnerability to global shocks (Gereffi et al., 2025; Pizzichini et al., 2025; Zahra and Hashai, 2025). Yet overly protectionist approaches risk undermining the very openness and diversity that drive creative discovery.

We invite conceptual, empirical, and review contributions that explore how creativity and resilience emerge at multiple levels, from R&D teams within MNCs to the design of national innovation systems. By examining both firm-level and policy-level dynamics, this track aims to advance our understanding of how creativity and resilience are sustained in a turbulent, fragmented world. Topics of interest include, but not limited to:
• Global R&D restructuring under deglobalisation, reshoring, and regionalisation pressures.
• The impact of new immigration policies on innovation and knowledge mobility.
• Innovation policymaking for resilience in the face of geopolitical tension and technological protectionism.
• Digital collaboration and AI as enablers of creativity in fragmented innovation networks.
• Comparative analyses of national and regional responses to global supply chain and talent disruptions.
• Interactions between corporate innovation strategies and government policy frameworks in shaping global innovation ecosystems.