SOCIAL INNOVATION and The EU

FOR COMMENTS ONLY
DRAFT POLICY REVIEW PAPER
Social Innovation as a Trigger for Transformations:
The Role of Research
Frank Moulaert, Abid Mehmood, Diana MacCallum, and Bernhard Leubolt
August 2017
Commissioned By:
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Directorate-General for Research & Innovation
Social Sciences and Humanities

Contents
FOREWORD.................................................................................................................................3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY................................................................................................................4
1 INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................5
2 WHAT IS SOCIAL INNOVATION? A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE............................................7
2.1 The early period (18th-19th century).......................................................................................8
2.2 SI thought and practice as of the early 20 th century till 1970s.............................................10
2.3 From 1970s till early 2000s: revival of SI as a socially innovative strategy..........................12
2.4 From the first BEPA report to Innovation Union: SI as an instrument of caring liberalism or
a trigger of new governance?..........................................................................................................14
2.5 Complementary meanings of SI in the contemporary socio-political and socio-economic
landscape.........................................................................................................................................15
3 WHAT IS SOCIAL INNOVATION RESEARCH TODAY?.........................................................17
3.1 A variety of approaches......................................................................................................17
3.2 EC funded SI research in this landscape..............................................................................20
3.3 Research methodologies in SI research...............................................................................31
4 COLLECTIVE ACTION, PUBLIC and SOCIAL INNOVATION..................................................42
4.1 Different definitions/understandings of the political, politics and policy: networking and
the move from mainstreaming to scaling........................................................................................43
4.2 Role of sectors and types of collective actors (State, Third Sector, Business, …)................44
4.3 SI: socio-politically embedded or socio-political transformer.............................................46
4.4 New views on the role of SI in collective action and public policy......................................47
5 THE ROLE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE IN POLICY DESIGN AND RESEARCH..................................50
5.1 Towards a coherent epistemological practice in SI research...............................................53
5.2 Reconfirming the prominence of social science in the analysis and design of socio-political
change 55
5.3 Recommendations for R&D policy in SSH and SI.................................................................57
6 CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................63
7 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................64
8 APPENDICES......................................................................................................................70
Boxes
Box 1: From roll-back to caring neoliberalism……………………………………………………………………….8
Tables
Table 1: Longue durée uses and interpretation of the term (Social) Innovation.....................11
Table 2: Modern and contemporary meanings of Social Innovation.......................................15
Table 3: Application of Social Innovation in the Analysed Projects.........................................21
Table 4: Approaches of Social Innovation (1 = primary approach, 2 = secondary approach or
approach taken in some aspects).............................................................................................30
Table 5: Methodologies in EC-funded SI research....................................................................33
Figures
Figure 1: Key Concepts of Social Innovation: from historical lessons to a contemporary
synthesis....................................................................................................................................53
2
FOREWORD
[tba]
3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Since the 1990s, social innovation (hereafter: SI) has become an important focus for policy-
relevant and practice-relevant research in the EU; innovation in and through social relations
is seen as a driver for the types of socio-political transformations that are necessary to
meeting the major challenges facing society – inequality, migration, climate change, mass
under-employment, political and economic instability, terrorism, and ecosystem collapse, to
name a few. This report assesses the state of the art in SI research and development with
particular focus on 29 projects supported by Framework Programme 7 and Horizons2020,
linking these also to the broader debates and history of SI in scholarship, policy and grass-
roots practice. The analysis highlights both strengths and weaknesses in relation to the role
of SI research in shaping both policy and collective action for change. In particular, it notes
the social (and political and cultural) nature of contemporary policy challenges, and the
importance of bottom-up and bottom-linked SI in responding to these. As a direct corollary,
if finds that decreasing support for social sciences and humanities, as well as increasing
pressure for ‘outputs’ rather than deep understanding, present clear and present dangers
for societal capacity to meet the challenges. It also finds that the positive trend to
interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity – both widely acknowledged as central to the
innovative potential of research – could be greatly strengthened by enhanced attention to
the coherent integration of the different perspectives. This implies a project selection
process across the various themes in which interdisciplinary skills, rather than disciplinary
expertise, are given more weight, as well as the establishment of genuinely inclusive and
balanced cooperation platforms and an explicit analytical focus, beyond tokenism, on social
difference (gender, ethnicity, ability, age, etc.).
4
1 INTRODUCTION
This paper examines the state of the art in the role of SI in research and development today.
It also reflects on the relevance of SI and SI research in collective action, policy making and
political transformation in Europe and the world today.
The trigger for the paper was the assessment of 29 research projects funded by the
European Commission with either their main focus on SI (CRESSI, SI-DRIVE, SIMRA, TRANSIT),
capacity building (BENISI, TRANSITION) and/or networking of SI initiatives (SIC), or attributing
a more or less important role to SI in projects with their primary focus on social policies
(IMPROVE, InnoServ, ), including youth empowerment (SocIEtY), health-related policies
(EuroFIT, INNOVAGE), social entrepreneurship, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the
non-profit sector (ITSSOIN, Seforis, Third Sector Impact), promoting environmental
sustainability (GLAMURS, IA4SI, SOCRATIC, TESS), food processing and consumption
(FUSIONS, Protein2Food, S3C), ocean development (SeaChange, Respon-SEA-ble),
transportation (MOBILITY4EU), and nanotechnologies (NANODIODE). The projects were
assessed on the basis of their deliverables and publications available by June 2017 in a
tabulated grid (Annex 1).
Early on in this assessment process it became clear that to fully understand the significance
of SI in research and development, collective action and public policy, other sources and
perspectives had to be brought on board. Therefore, in order to do right to history and other
approaches, this policy review paper also found inspiration from a number of prominent
survey articles on the role of SI in addressing today’s societal challenges, from the Policy
Review on ‘Social innovation research in the European Union’, coordinated by Jenson and
Harrisson (2013) in the confines of the WILCO project (Brandsen et al., 2016; ), but also in
research looking at different ways to find solutions to the European and world societal
challenges today. Among those we consider publications on socio-political transformation,
socio-ecological transition and de-growth, social infrastructure, democratization of
governance, … (REFs to be added in final stage)
The Policy Review Paper is first concerned with bringing some order to the varied uses of the
term SI in the various science and practice fields. The approach is scientific, but with science
being in a support position to collective action and public policy. Second, it is concerned
5
about the lack of historical perspective to both the scientific build-up and the analysis of SI
as a collective practice and process in the majority of research projects on SI. Third, it
observes several shortcomings in the implementation of the interdisciplinary and
transdisciplinary vocation of SI research. And, fourth and finally, the paper seeks to give a
closer look at the potential of SI research and practice for the transformation of existent
socio-political systems. Special attention will be given to achieving a new equilibrium
between economy and society, the re-institutionalization of society and its communities as
well as the place that social science and humanities should occupy in supporting these
transformations.
To address these concerns, the paper is built up in 4 steps. First it examines the history of
thought and practice of SI, especially in the Western World, with a particular focus on its
roles as an analytical concept and a collective practice. A distinction is made between a
longue durée (18th – contemporary era) as well as a contemporary history perspective
starting around the 1970s till today. Based on this double historical analysis, a synthesis of
the contemporary meanings of SI, the ways they are theorized and applied is provided
(sections 2 and 3 of the paper).
In a second step, a summary is provided of the different types of SI research (section 3).
Their transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary features are spelled out and evaluated against
the background of important developments in contemporary science practice. An
intermediate conclusion here is that SSH are in strong need of attributing a central place to
SI research, not the least because SI research will reinforce the action-research character of
social sciences and humanities, badly required to build stronger bonds with other sciences;
but also, if not more so, because SI research can help social science to overcome its
inferiority position vis-à-vis so-called hard sciences.
Step 3 then situates SI and SI research within the broader scientific and political debate on
collective action, public policy and socio-political transformation (section 4), while step 4
(section 5) focuses on the roles of social science and humanities in EU research and policy
design and how SI can have a key role in defining these roles. Recent research (IMPROVE) on
the relationship between SI and social rights entitlements can be a guideline to this purpose.
6
2 WHAT IS SOCIAL INNOVATION? A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
This section provides a brief historical analysis of the meaning of SI both in SSH thought, as
well as in practice domains as identified by policy analysts, civil society organizations and
leaders, socio-political activists, and many other types of ‘alter’ actors in civil, political and
economic society. Based on this historical overview, it connects the historical roots of the
term and its different contextual uses, to its meaning for research, collective action and
public policy today. It argues that an inclusive historical overview of the different roles of SI
throughout the history of modernity, offers a good basis for defining the defining the role of
human development in general, and EC public policy in particular.
It is important to observe that from about the middle of the 20 th century till 1980s
innovation was almost considered synonymous to technological innovation. The rise of
innovation economics as of the 1930s (?), and as of the 1980s of the systems of innovation
approach (general, national, regional) stressed the all-important role of technology in
innovation and economic development (Edquist, 1992; Moulaert and Sekia, 2003). This wave
of economic and technological innovation overshadowed the more than two centuries
history of innovation as well as that of SI that started in the early 1800s. In consequence, the
socio-political and human dimensions of development were pushed to the back. When as of
the 1970s, for a variety of reasons, the academic and policy interest in SI returned, SI first led
a life as an intellectual support and practice manual for grassroots organizations, social
economy and emancipation movements and as an ethical principle within the CRS ambitions
of large parts of the business world. It was also connected to the rising interest in the ‘third
sector’ and efforts of local development to fight unemployment (Delors 1979). But by 2010
SI became an instrument within the latest stage of neoliberalism, i.e. caring neo-liberalism.
Within caring neoliberalism policy makers combine policy measures rationalizing the welfare
state with activating civil society organizations. As a consequence, the latter often become
the executers of the cheap welfare state, providing social services at a lower cost if not a
lower quality (Nicholls and Teasdale, 2017; Peck, 2013).
7
Box 1: From roll-back to caring neoliberalism
Roll-back neoliberalism Caring neoliberalism as latest stage of

roll-out neoliberalism
- Active destruction or discredidation - Construction and consolidation of
of Keynesian welfarist institutions neoliberal state forms
- Privatisations - Governance settings beyond the
- Liberalisation of labour laws and state
social rights - Privilege to enterprises
- Deregulation - Activating social policies
- Spending cuts for social services
Sources: Peck/Tickell 2002; Peck 2013; Moulaert 2000; Swyngedouw and Moulaert 2002
There are at least two approaches to understanding the "pre-academic" history of SI: to
examine, as Godin (2012, 2015) does, the historiography of the term; or to reconstruct the
dynamics of historical cases that we can retrospectively understand as SI 'events', whether
or not connected to the historical debates on the term (social) innovation and its historical
roots. This latter method is associated with some specific approaches to SI which place the
institutionalisation and reproduction of ideas and organisational forms at the forefront of SI
(Besançon et al., 2013; Moulaert and Nussbaumer, 2008).
2.1 The early period (18th-19th century)
Learning from Godin’s historiography, we become aware of the importance of the history of
a term and its content, how its meaning and content change, and how these cannot be
understood without situating them in their historical and geographical context. The latter
refer to both intellectual debates and emblematic experiences at particular (spatial,
institutional) scales and epochs. Especially scrutinising the various uses in different spheres
of society (religion, political life, crafts, philosophy, …) is important. For contextualising the
use of the term ‘innovation’, we should take into account the history of socio-economic and
political development in the Western world. Innovation was a highly contested term till the
end of the 19th century. Until then it was at the heart of socio-political debates, more a
slogan or an ethical ambition of ‘change’ and ‘revolution’, in conflict with the conservative
ambition of maintaining societal relations as they were.
8
Till the end of the 19th century innovation was predominantly connoted with radical change
(revolution) or renewing the old (returning to what existed before or updating the old). The
use of the term polarized ideological, religious and socio-political debates and struggles. Also
the meaning of the term enlarged in two directions: political (revolutionary or republican)
and social (the introduction of the term ‘social innovator’ by William L. Sargant in 1858, in
the sense of social revolution; cf. Sargant, 2010). No material or physical content was given
to innovation, the meaning remained political and controversial. Throughout the 19 th
century duality in the interpretation of SI persisted: pejorative for conservative forces,
because connected to social reform and socialism, yet increasingly appraised as possible
solutions as social problems became increasingly societally appreciated and social reform
considered necessary. Clearly the different positions vis-à-vis SI parallel the ideological and
socio-political struggles between religious and non-religious, revolutionary or gradual change
oriented social and political movements (Jessop et al., 2013).
Several societal changes were labelled as SIs such as education by Auguste Comte (1841) and
legislation on labour, work conditions and unions (Godin, 2012, p. 19). Towards the end of
the century – and quite in tune with the evolution of the meaning of ‘innovation’ in general,
SI, in addition to societal revolution and social change, received a third meaning, namely
new social practice or behaviour (Godin, 2012, p. 21). Manners, habits, fashion, changes in
micro-social relations (e.g. men and women) could resort under this meaning. But social
practice and behaviour fit a diversity of approaches in social science that rose in that period
(institutionalism, sociology, …). Even if there is far reaching agreement about the term social
relations in social science, its dynamics are interpreted according to the often strongly
ontologically opposing theories in which they have been conceptualized. By the end of the
19th century, the fragility of the terms innovation and SI lies with this lack of connection with
social and economic change and development theories.
The most remarkable SI trajectory of the 19 th, early 20th century was the rise and
institutionalization of the ‘Economie sociale’. Workers movement leaders, unionists,
cooperative and enlightened entrepreneurs, social economists, sociologists, political activists
and leaders, found each other in the construction of a long-lasting trajectory combining new
cooperative enterprise models, new legislation and institutional structures, education and
9
research, … all facilitating the gradual build-up of a social economy as an alternative for the
wild-cat capitalism of the industrial revolution (Defourny and Nyssens, 2013).
2.2 SI thought and practice as of the early 20th century till 1970s
By the end of the 19th century ‘social innovation’, like ‘innovation’ had not really been
theorized. But its affinity with different social development theories using concepts that are
related to SI becomes visible. Weber, Durkheim, Schumpeter, Tarde, and others (Howaldt et
al., 2015; Jessop et al., 2013) have developed theories of societal change in which social
invention, social transformation and change, reproduction of social practices, … had a
prominent role (see figure 1). Yet because of the growing autonomy of disciplines – from
proto-disciplinarity to disciplinarity; Jessop and Sum, 2001) each developing various
paradigms, the dialogue between development theories, theories of social change and
various theories of individual agency only took place in the margins of the scientific debates.
This does not mean that there was no communication or cooperation between scientists
from different disciplines. But the late interest in the analysis of agency in change-oriented
development theories, as well as the gradual abandoning of structural analysis in
mainstream economics led to many missed opportunities. A rather convincing ‘proof’ of this
is that it took sociology fifty years between the two leading works on SI (complete).
10
Table 1: Longue durée uses and interpretation of the term (Social) Innovation
Period/time Social transformation Social reform Micro-social innovation

Stress on nature of SI
Antecedents 16th-17th … revolutionary Innovation as Heresy …? Guilds - Cooperations
century innovator
19th century Socialist revolutions Especially in the French Cooperatives
targeting capitalism – tradition: more positive Socio-political
Rather pejorative … Socialism is only one of organizations
meaning but evolving the meanings of SI
towards taking care of Religious innovation and Social Innovator William
social ethical renewal Sargant in 1858
End 19th-20th century: two stages in modernity
1. Consolidation of social Workers and intellectual Legal and administrative Organization and
economy struggle culminating in system for social + governance of social and
rise of mixed economy cooperative economy cooperative enterprises
1. Building of the welfare From capitalism to Labour and social laws

state welfare capitalism
2.1. Social and cultural Anti-patriarchial and Cultural rights; New models of
emancipation authoritarian movements Changes in educational participation and self-
system; governance
Economic democracy
2.2. The new urban “Les regions et villes qui Increasing importance of Neighbourhood planning
question perdent” – Protest urban policy instruments by civil society actors,
movements- (Poverty Programme, neighbourhood
Neighbourhood Urban, other sections of committees, new urban
committees and urban initiatives, IAD
movements
2.3. Social and solidarity Two new waves of New laws and regulations New governance models
economy (SSE) economic precarization establishing the SSE – for SSE, networking and
leading to union protests Neoliberalism versus new association building
and new social economic grassroots economies –
movements strong ideological
conflicts
2.3. Socioecological Identity seeking and New urban and rural New urban commons,
movements community building commons, LEDs, small scale agriculture
beyond the (market) reinventing public space, and local development
economic generalizing social experiments, ‘new’
Rediscovery of the protection villages, post-
political (equity for all) foundational initiatives,
Bottom-linked
governance (Spanish big
cities)
Sources: Godin, 2012; Moulaert and Nussbaumer, 2008; Moulaert and Mehmood, 2017a
A very important development of the loss of interest in SI was the rise of innovation
economics. Although early contributions are affiliated with the rise of neo-classical
economics (e.g. endogenous growth theory; cf. Arrow 1962), innovation economics was not
11
neo-classical persé and can certainly not be identified with neoliberal economics today.
Freeman (2008), Freeman and Soete (1997), Lundvall (2002), Edquist (1992), Cooke and
Morgan (1998) and many others in fact situated the role of technological innovation in an
open systems approach, situating the use of technological and organizational innovation
within larger sectoral, national and regional innovation systems. Their concepts came from
evolution theory and evolutionary economics, thus volunteering a more institutionally
embedded image of the innovative entrepreneur. This view of (technological) innovation has
significantly influenced national and international innovation policies till today. But it
restricted itself to economically innovative agents, with no deep reflections on what SI could
mean. Moreover, the evolutionary theory of the firm has often been narrowed to the short-
run productivity and profit seeking firm, not the sustainable entrepreneur and his (her)
firms, or the organic community or city which played a significant role in the institutionalist
spatial development scholars of the late 19 th, early 20th century scientific debate (Moulaert
and Nussbaumer 2008).
2.3 From 1970s till early 2000s: revival of SI as a socially innovative strategy
In the first half of 20th century SI was only sporadically analysed according to its own right.
The emancipation movements, the social struggles against the patriarchal state, the search
for new economic democracy, collective strategies against the returning ‘question urbaine’
(REF French urban sociologists/ Moulaert and Scott/ Delvainquière) produced a rather
comprehensive SI agenda. Chambon et al. (1982), intellectuals of the ‘Temps des Cérises’,
reflecting on or active in the social and economic emancipation movements of the 1960s and
70s, participated in a debate of wide social and political significance on the transformation of
society and, in particular, on the role of the revolts by students, intellectuals and workers. At
the same time they were interested in the socio-political meaning of particular SIs. This
debate was echoed in large part in the journal Autrement, with contributions from the likes
of Pierre Rosanvallon, Jacques Fournier and Jacques Attali. Subsequently, Chambon, David
and Devevey (1982) built on most of the issues highlighted in this debate. Despite the
passage of three decades, this 128-page book remains an impressive ‘open’ synthesis on the
subject of SI. The authors explain how SI signifies satisfaction of specific needs thanks to
collective initiative, which is not synonymous with state intervention. In effect, these authors
12
argue, the state can act, at one and the same time, as a barrier to SI and as an arena of social
interaction that can stimulate SI originating in the spheres of state or market. They stress
that SI can occur in different types of communities and at various spatial scales, but is
conditional on processes of consciousness raising, mobilization and learning. They mainly
reproduce the highlights of the French debate and initiatives on SI, but also refer to
experiences in the UK.
The approaches falling under the Chambon et al. summary can be attributed to several
disciplines and paradigms: social and solidarity economy, anthropology, arts and culture. The
analytical work is ideologically open-minded but strongly attached to ethics pursuing equity,
often rooted in social theories and spurred by movements with a long history of resistance
or emancipation. Its focus was similar to some of the recent EC-funded projects (FUSIONS,
GLAMURS, IA4SI, IMPROVE, INNOSERV, INNOVAGE. TESS, TRANSIT), albeit the connection
seems to be stronger for projects not centrally focused on SI (e.g. FUSIONS, GLAMURS,
IMPROVE, INNOSERV, INNOVAGE, TESS).
In general a distinction can be made between the ‘emancipation wave’ of the 1960-70s, the
neighbourhood development period (1980s-2000) and the new social economy period
(especially after the 2008 financial crisis). These periods overlap but the movements they
refer to have different targets: the emancipation movement was about dismantling the
authoritarian state and corporate structure; the neighbourhood development movement
targeted the renaissance of urban neighbourhoods in decline due to industrial restructuring;
and the new social (and solidarity) economy period targeted relief for the economic victims
of the 2008 financial crisis. It is only during this last period that some SI research has begun
to converge with the neoliberal agenda of making the social economy instrumental to
privatizing the welfare state and rationalizing public finance.
13
2.4 From the first BEPA report to Innovation Union: SI as an instrument of
caring liberalism or a trigger of new governance?
Since the early 2000s, SI has had a significant impact on international but also national policy
documents and policies (Jenson and Harrisson, 2013). It figures prominently around the
world in diverse policy programmes to fight poverty, overcome social exclusion, empower
minorities, etc. It has a key role in the Millennium Agenda, in Barack Obama’s Office of SI and
Civic Participation, in the EC’s Innovation Union Programme (BEPA, 2010), in OECD policy
advice on the role of social entrepreneurship in combating social exclusion and
socioeconomic restructuring (Noya, 2009; OECD, 2010) and in the strategies of organizations
and foundations such as Ashoka Innovators for the Public, the Skoll Foundation, and the
Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship with a global outreach promoting market
driven SI (Elkington and Hartigan, 2008; Reich, 2011).
The significance that various mainstream strategy and policy documents accord to SI varies
greatly. Nonetheless, one commonality stands out: they interpret it in economic, indeed
often in narrowly market-economic, terms (Sabato et al., 2015, pp. 33-35). This perspective
is strongly influenced by management science, innovation economics and a micro-economic
interpretation of SI strategies (see for example Murray et al., 2010). While SI certainly has
economic aspects, stressing them too strongly can easily lead to a reductive interpretation of
SI and its potential – especially where a narrowly market-economic approach prescribes how
economic practices and relations should be analysed. The resulting economistic view in
these documents of the relationship between economy and SI becomes evident from their
account of the relations between social problems and how SI initiatives would address them,
the overly organizational view of innovation in social relations, and the uncritical privileging
of firms as the (potential) carriers of SI. The last feature prioritizes the social business over
the social movement as a vehicle for SI and thereby represents the functioning of the social
economy in a rather one-sided view.
14
2.5 Complementary meanings of SI in the contemporary socio-political and
socio-economic landscape
This brief history has highlighted the emergence of a range of meanings, orientations and
uses of SI in scholarly, political and professional discourse and practice. The resulting ‘SI
landscape’ is complex, as different aspects of this heritage are taken up by authors and
practitioners alike in response to the practical pressures of post-crisis politics and economics.
As the next section will outline, different approaches compete with each other – especially in
relation to their connection with or resistance to the broader neoliberal project – but some
are also complementary, offering interpretations of socio-political and socio-economic
change at different space/time scales and with attention to different kinds of agency. Table
2 provides an overview of some of the most influential meanings in current circulation.
Table 2: Modern and contemporary meanings of Social Innovation
Concepts of SI Time period Societal context Particular ‘messages’ - Definitions

/Discipline
Weber M Relationship between Role of individuals with behavioural

(1920) [Social social order and variants
invention] innovation
Schumpeter Rise of Keynesianism Relationship between Search for a comprehensive social
(1932) – Rupture with innovation and theory (Sociology of Knowledge)
[innovation and extreme market development
development] freedom
Tarde
James Taylor 1970s Community
(1970) Development
Chambon, Student Crisis of Fordism, still “Les innovations sociales”
David, Devevey revolts/emancipation strong belief in making
(1982) movements 1970s Welfare State more
inclusive
Peter Drucker Rise and high days of “Open management ‘Social innovation’ as a hinge term to
(1987) Corporate Strategic science” refer to the need for organizational
Management SI in business and public slimness”
life, mass movements, …
Moulaert et al. Urban and regional Rise of local development Innovation in social relations to
(1995; 2000) development (1990s) ‘movement’ – Territorial satisfy (collective) needs – Role of
Klein et al. dynamics Empowerment and Socio-Political
transformation
Laville, Nyssen, Rediscovery of Succession of economic Revival of social economy in
EMES Economie Sociale crises ousting people from interaction with market logic but also
and Solidaire (1990s jobs pursuing autonomous development
on)
15
Concepts of SI Time period Societal context Particular ‘messages’ - Definitions
/Discipline
Mulgan et al. Responding to Transition from “Innovations that are social in both
market and state disciplining to caring their ends and their means” (Mulgan
failure in providing liberalism – Civil society as 2012, p. 22)
jobs + wellbeing welfarist
IMPROVE 2000ies – Continuing Continuing rationalizations SIs are actions aimed at the
discrepancies in welfare states - satisfaction of social needs that are
between welfare not adequately met by market and
needs and state macro-level welfare policies (content
service provision dimension)
- through the transformation of social
relations (process dimension)
which involves empowerment and
socio-political mobilization (political
dimension linking the process and
content dimension
TRANSIT Early 2000s on TRANSIT will explore “A change in social relations,
Linking social and constituent links in the involving new ways of doing,
ecological causal chain between SI organising, framing and/or knowing.
problematics and systemic change. We approach SI as a process and as a
qualitative property of ideas, objects,
activities and/or (groups of) people.
All of these can be (or become)
socially innovative to the extent that
they engage in/contribute to a
change in social relations, involving
new ways of doing, organising,
framing and/or knowing.
Combinations of ideas, objects and
activities that are considered to be
socially innovative, can be referred to
as ‘social innovations’.”
SI-DRIVE SI-DRIVE is aware of Scalar perspectives to the SI-DRIVE is aiming at a theoretical
the complexity of the diverse world of SI in all its framework and typology defining and
governance of the aspects? characterising the world of SI,
diverse SI initiatives. delivering a sound ground for further
It distinguishes research and practices. It looks at a
between four diversity of innovative social practices
governance frames social
movements, policy
programmes, umbrella
organisations and
networks have been
analysed. The socio-
political dynamics are
approached in a systemic
way, conflictual
dynamics are not
theorised.
16
3 WHAT IS SOCIAL INNOVATION RESEARCH TODAY?
In the light of the historical lessons from section 2, section 3 examines how SI research is
practised today. A number of recent literature surveys, including among others some
conducted for SI projects funded under the Framework Programs, have produced various
classifications of approaches to SI research (e.g. Ayob et al., 2016; Brandsen et al., 2016;
Choi and Majumdar, 2015; Howaldt and Kopp, 2012; Montgomery, 2016; Moulaert, 2010;
Moulaert et al., 2013a; Moulaert and Mehmood 2017b; Nicholls et al., 2015; Oosterlynck et
al., 2013a; Oosterlynck et al., 2013b; Parés et al., 2017; Rüede and Lurtz, 2012; Young
Foundation, 2012), often in search of a single comprehensive definition of the term. Section
3.1 draws on some of these surveys to give a very brief overview of the broader landscape of
SI research before narrowing in on the research funded by the EC in the last decade (3.2). 1 A
separate sub-section 3.3 discusses the question of methodology.
3.1 A variety of approaches
In a review of the International Handbook on Social Innovation, Gordon Shockley begins with
the bold claim that “Two literatures on social innovation have developed” (2015, p. 152): an
“Anglo-American entrepreneurship studies” literature, based largely in business innovation
and management science and a somewhat more diverse “Euro-Canadian social economies”
literature with contributors from across the social, political and economic sciences. As
Section 2 of this report makes clear (and Shockley acknowledges), this bilateral division is a
simplification, but it is one which expresses a widely recognised tension in SI scholarship and
which is highly significant to the policy debate; it therefore provides our starting point.
Following from this, this sub-section classifies research approaches on the basis of their
disciplinary and conceptual roots, and not on the basis of their empirical focus (for example,
1
In this section, we are concerned primarily with research that treats SI as a type of response to human
needs and/or social problems through changes in, or the creation of new, social relations. We acknowledge
the existence other discipline-specific uses of the term (for example in human resources management,
internet studies, and social work; cf. Rüede and Lurtz, 2012) but see these as somewhat peripheral to the
body of work most relevant to EU policy.
17
we do not treat the large body of literature linking SI to social enterprise and/or third sector
initiatives as a separate category – cf. various).
The “Anglo-American” literature has gained particular international prominence in the last
decade, as it tends to support the instrumental, ‘social entrepreneurial’, micro-economistic
approach that characterises post-Crisis policy discourse (Sabato et al., 2015). That is, this
literature focusses strongly on the design, implementation and diffusion of “new ideas that
work in meeting social goals” (Mulgan, 2007, p. 8). Thereby, the solutions of social problems
are isolated from underlying structural causes and conflicts. Instead, the focus is on
activating marginalised and vulnerable people as productive economic subjects. As such, it
can be seen as a discourse of roll-out or ‘caring neoliberalism’ (Montgomery, 2016; Moulaert
et al., 2013a; Peck, 2013), with a strong focus on how to facilitate or enable the ‘right’ kinds
of SI. In some cases of SIs – especially in the ‘sharing’ and/or ‘gig economy’ (e.g. Uber,
Airbnb) – observers have even noted the emergence of a ‘neoliberalism on steroids’
(Morozov, 2013; Murillo et al., 2017). It is notable (and a little puzzling) that several reports
at the EU level (including BEPA, 2010, 2014; EC, 2013) were (co)authored by and/or cite as
sources only UK-based proponents of this approach, in particular the Young Foundation and
SIX.2
The other side of this bilateral division has been described as “democratic” (Montgomery,
2016, as opposed to “technocratic”) or “radical” (Ayob et al., 2016, as opposed to
“instrumental”)3. This literature is interdisciplinary and theoretically diverse (see Haxeltine et
al., 2016; Moulaert et al., 2013b; Oosterlynck et al., 2013a), and continues the line of
thinking emerging from the late 1980s around local development concerns. It is set within
the broader tradition of critical studies, and tends to carry a more explicitly political message
that foregrounds empowerment, solidarity and the generation of counter-hegemonic
alternatives to neoliberalism: a core promise of this approach to SI is that it offers the means
not only for meeting needs, but also for political mobilisation among those left behind by the
developments of late capitalism. “Changes in social relations”, in this discourse, means
2
Pares et al distinguish at a finer grain between an economics-based approach, emphasising the
entrepreneurship aspect according to a Schumpeterian framework, and a management-based approach, which
rather focusses on how to create social value through organisational means. We will leave this distinction aside
in this report, as we see a large overlap with many of the high-cite sources covering both.
3
These two articles are based on very different analytical methods and, consequently, there is no neat one-to-
one correspondence between the categories; however, their conclusions are startlingly similar.
18
transformational change beyond the establishment of new collaborations and relations
between organisations and sectors. There is thus an explicit analytical focus on multi-level
governance and institutional dynamics, as well as on the strategies and knowledges
mobilised by SI actors in particular contexts. This stream of thinking is often identified with a
territorial or urban development approach (MacCallum et al., 2009; Moulaert and
Nussbaumer, 2005), as it is the basis a trajectory of European projects since the 1980s
focussed on the emerging neighbourhood development movement (Moulaert et al., 2005;
Moulaert and Nussbaumer, 2005; Moulaert et al., 2002). Both MacCallum et al (2009) and
Pares et al (2017) differentiate, within this ‘democratic’ stream, between the territorial
development approach and a political science approach focussed more on governance
relations, in the sense of the links between SI and the state (Leubolt and Weinzierl, 2017;
Martinelli, 2013; Miquel et al., 2013; Novy and Leubolt, 2005). Yet these approaches are
closely connected; the territorial development approach displays a strong concern with
governance and has made strong contributions, for instance in the concept of ‘bottom-
linked’ governance (Eizaguerre et al., Garcia et al).
This Policy Paper, although conscious of the role of ideology in defining and practicing SI,
moves beyond this ‘practical’ vs ‘structural’ duality and brings on board other entries to SI as
a strategy and a process. One, identified by Moulaert et al (2013b; 2010), André et al (2013)
and Pares et al (2017), is concerned with creativity – how new ideas about the organisation
of social relations are developed and implemented by creative individuals to produce social
change. A seminal contribution along these lines is that of Mumford (2002). A related
stream of work connects SI to artistic endeavour, and the building of milieux in which
creative energies and diverse forms of expression are released (André et al., 2013; André et
al., 2009; Tremblay and Pilati, 2013).
Pares et al. ‘s final category of SI research is a systems approach, represented most strongly
by the work of the Waterloo Institute for SI and Resilience (Antadze and Westley, 2013;
Westley and Antadze, 2010; Westley et al., 2013). Informed especially by theories on
ecosystem resilience, this approach has as its focus on how the introduction of new and
hybrid ideas leads to macro-systemic change (Westley et al., 2013).
In recent years, indeed, there has been increasing interest in SI as a driver of macro-level
social change, and additional, more sociological approaches to similar questions have
19
emerged – two of which are represented by the projects SI-DRIVE (Howaldt and Schwarz,
2016) and TRANSIT (Pel et al. 2016). The former adopts a social practice perspective (Shove),
while the latter takes a more explicitly institutionalist approach.
Another line of research, also identified by Rüede and Lurtz, links SI with technology – both
the social processes that enable technological invention, an issue with obvious policy
implications, and the social effects of technological change (e.g. represented in the project
NANODIODE, but also in the many FP projects on innovation systems and regional
development).
In addition, there is a growing body of literature presenting meta-theoretical, historical and

critical perspectives on SI (e.g. Godin, 2012; Jessop et al., 2013; Marques et al., 2017,
Fougere et al., 20174). This literature focusses on SI as a concept, rather than as practice.
3.2 EC funded SI research in this landscape
As indicated in the introduction, we have mainly analysed 29 recent research projects on SI.
But we also referred to other projects and their analysis with the purpose of covering the
wider ‘universe of SI research’. Our analysis in this section attended to approaches taken and
the projects’ implications for policy and research, rather than simply their objectives and
findings. Table 3 condenses the main outcomes of analysis.
4
Fougère, M.Segercrantz, B. and Seeck, H. (2017) A critical reading of the European Union’s social innovation
policy discourse: (Re)legitimizing neoliberalism. Organization pre-pub.
20
Table 3: Application of Social Innovation in the Analysed Projects
Project Role and Indicative definition Theoretical and Attention to SI aspects

application of SI of SI ontological history of thought foregrounded
in the project and/or practice
H2020
5.i ICT
SOCRATIC SI as a secondary Different users and Open innovation Highly specific in Networking
(688228) goal of the stakeholders co- theory in a business regard to between
X development of a creating knowledge* sense, with relationship different types
technological commitment to between IT and of people and
platform for social construction innovation institutions;
knowledge of knowledge. democratisatio
sharing Economic liberals. n and co-
SI not clearly production of
implied in the knowledge;
template. scalar dynamics
– local-global
interactions
enabled by ICT.
SC2 Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine/water research, bio-economy.
Protein2Foo SI as a way of New ideas (products, Food security and Not in relation to Networking;
d describing an services and models) sustainability, but SI. Focus on
635727 intention to that simultaneously this is basically an vulnerable
X benefit meet social needs - agri-science project. groups –
vulnerable more effectively than SI not evident in the empowerment
groups within the alternatives - and template. through
food economy, create new social enabling
mainly by relationships or participation in
including training collaborations (BEPA the economy.
as part of the 2010).
dissemination
program.
SIMRA Primary focus - None given, but Theoretical Not evident in Refers social-
(677622) develop theory connected to framework to be relation to SI at ecological
and methods in innovative developed. Appears this stage, but systems;
XX the context of governance (possibly to be starting from highly likely given institutional
marginalised in deference to the institutional project aims. dynamics;
rural areas. call). analysis of social- spatial and
Too early to ecological systems temporal
assess (McGinnis and dynamics;
application. Stirling). multi-level
governance.
SeaChange Not the focus – None given Ocean literacy Not evident in Consultation.
(652644) appears to be relation to SI
AUX used as a
synonym for
stakeholder
participation.
Respon-SEA- Not the focus, None Communications, Not evident in None
ble doesn’t appear in governance of relation to SI
(652643) project oceans
AUX description
SC4
Transport
21
MOBILITY4E Not the focus and None Mobility Not evident in Consultation
U not mentioned in relation to SI and
(690732) project collaboration,
AUX description. The encouragement
project aims to and promotion
be a ‘human- of new ideas to
centred’ meet mobility
approach to challenges.
mobility
SC6: Europe in a changing world – inclusive, innovative and reflective societies
SIC Primary focus – 'SIs are new solutions Pragmatic. Only recent Social
(693883) coordination (products, services, Active and growth in entrepreneursh
XX action to network models, markets, experiential attention to SI. ip; networking;
social innovators processes etc.) that learning – empowerment
in order to simultaneously meet innovation as enabling
promote/facilitat a social need (more ecosystems and economic
e SI engagement, effectively than organisational participation.
activity and existing solutions) learning.
upscaling. and lead to new or
Inform public improved capabilities
education about and relationships and
SI. better use of assets
and resources. In
other words, SIs are
both good for society
and enhance society’s
capacity to act. (BEPA
2010, via TEPSIE).
FP7
FP7-Socio-economic sciences and humanities
InnoServ Primary focus is None given, but Visual sociology. Need for New
(290542) innovation in innovation in social Range of different innovation placed institutional
X social services services: types of innovation in historical relations;
delivery. SI – in innovations are those theory including context of micro-
(Social the sense of social services that wide-ranging SI. economic, initiatives;
Platform) institutional and meet individuals’ General orientation demographic, multi-level
organisational needs in the areas of to social protection, cultural etc. governance;
change – one health, education and maybe. changes and meeting human
aspect of this. care in living in wider Need for decline of welfare needs.
society through: innovation, tensions state.
a) the promotion of between
social interaction for socialisation and
mutual support; new discourse
b) the delivery of treating services as
organizational economic goods.
arrangements for the
provision of directed
support to individuals
or groups
BENISI Primary focus – None given, but Business None evident Social
(604868) support seems to be largely management; entrepreneursh
X successful SI to equated with social market orientation. ip; upscaling. SI
upscale across enterprise SI as an outcome of as market
Europe, through the initiatives of based.
establishment of social Networking
a network and entrepreneurs. and
development of Also strong focus on partnerships
incubation and learning. important to
support scalability.
programs.
22
TRANSITION Primary focus – “SIs are new solutions Business None evident. Social
(604849) supporting (ideas, products, management; entrepreneursh
XX development and services, models, market orientation. ip; upscaling. SI
upscaling of markets, processes SI as an outcome of as market
selected SI etc.) that the initiatives of based.
initiatives, simultaneously meet social Networking
broadly a social need (more entrepreneurs and and
conceived, effectively than other actors. partnerships
through business existing solutions) Underlying important to
incubator model. and lead to new or premises include scalability.
improved capabilities understanding that
and relationships and SI is best nurtured
better use of assets in hybrid spaces
and resources.” (where the public
(BEPA via TEPSIE) sector, the private
sector and
communities
overlap and
intersect).
Glamurs Not the focus. None given Social-ecological Not evident for SI. Interaction
613420 Possibly an add- systems, but not between
X(X) on. connected to SI. individual
Sustainability; behaviour, local
environmental initiatives and
economics; local/regional
psychology. state.
Individual agency
highlighted as
driver of social
transformation.
Seforis Not the focus. None given Business Not for SI. Social
613500 Links social management Presumably yes enterprise,
X(X) enterprise to approach using for SE, but social
priorities of the systems theory. difficult to find on entrepreneursh
EU. Innovation as a website. ip (implicitly as
function of markets, an aspect of
individual roll-out
entrepreneurial neoliberalism).
initiative. Market-based
innovation.
Institutional
and
governance
barriers to
entrepreneursh
ip.
Third Sector Not the focus. SI Various given, citing Social economy and Brief Third sector;
Impact (TSI) as a driver of BEPA, OECD. social acknowledgemen challenge to
613034 third sector entrepreneurship; t that concept is marketization;
XX impact and an transformative not new, citing institutional
opportunity for potential of social Durkheim, dynamics and
supporting policy action; critique of Weber, policy regimes.
at EU level. marketization of Schumpeter (via
third sector. Mehmood and
Baker). TS placed
in historical
context.
23
SocIEtY Secondary focus None given. SI linked Capability approach No. SI presented Top-down vs
320136 – goal of project to meeting social linked to SI through as recent policy bottom up
XX to understand needs; participation. idea of social value. discourse. Placed initiatives;
and foster SI for in context of multi-level
and by young marketization of governance;
people, with services. empowerment
overall aim of as economic
empowering participation;
them in society. Overall, SI as
Analytically links market-based
youth and driven by
participation with individuals;
EU policy.
SI-DRIVE Primary focus of as a new combination Project aims to Not evident for SI, Variegated
612870 analysis – or figuration of develop coherent but various other across sectors
XXX understanding practices in areas of theoretical sociological and scales;
success factors of social action, framework. Key concepts networking;
SI as an element prompted by certain starting points = contextualised. scalar
of social change. actors or Tarde on dynamics.
constellations of invention/imitation;
actors with the goal social practices
of better coping with theory.
needs and problems
than is possible by use
of existing practices.
An innovation is
therefore social to the
extent that it varies
social action, and is
socially accepted and
diffused in society (be
it throughout society,
larger parts, or only in
certain societal sub-
areas affected.
TRANSIT Primary object of “A change in social Theory Historically Central concept
613169 research – SI as relations, involving development a key contextualises is SI in its socio-
XXX driver of systemic new ways of doing, aim of the project. case studies, but politically
social change organising, framing Draws on a range of little attention to transformative
(analytical and/or knowing. … social-constructivist history of SI aspect. Strong
concept) Combinations of theories, thought focus on
ideas, objects and highlighting the networking
activities that are roles of institutions, practices,
considered to be practices, mainly with
socially innovative, discourses, micro- global scope;
can be referred to as politics. Also institutional
‘social innovations’.” systems/complexity change; (dis)
. empowerment
as an aspect of
systemic social
change.
24
CRESSI Primary focus – The development and Explicitly, Not evident for SI Core is the
613261 policy as an delivery of new ideas Institutionalism and thought, but place of poor
XXX enabler for SI to and solutions Sen’s capabilities history of practice and vulnerable
meet human (products, services, approach, Beckert’s part of people within
needs. SI models, markets, social grid model. ‘comprehensive’ markets.
another type of processes) at different Strongly market case study Institutional
innovation socio-structural levels oriented – aims to analysis – social power
alongside that intentionally seek establish “an housing, financing structures;
business and to change power economic theory of education, policy as
tech. Largely a relations and improve and context for fresh water enabling/constr
top-down human capabilities, social innovation supply. aining;
approach. as well as the across the EU” empowerment
processes via which They report as economic
these solutions are explicitly on how participation.
carried out.” their approach
differs from
Neoclassical
economics.
ITSSOIN SI as an outcome Contextual only: Focus on structural Brief Non-profit
613177 of third sector “the capacity of non- and institutional acknowledgemen sector as
XXX actions – a way profits to generate conditions: Welfare t that SI goes back drivers;
to understand novel ideas as well as capitalism; political to Weber, not networking;
‘impact’. General new ways and economies; policy developed. institutional/ter
aim to methods of acting or analysis; public ritorial
understand and of implementing discourse embedding;
promote ‘social objectives, and of institutionalisa
innovativeness’. addressing diverse tion/ scaling;
public and social social inclusion.
problems”
TEPSIE Follows the “new approaches to Focus on building SI systems in Theoretical,
290771 Innovation Union addressing social tools, methods and different fields empirical and
strategy needs. They are social policies for a and national policy
objectives, in their means and in Europe wide SI contexts foundations for
especially in their ends. They strategy building,
terms of social engage and mobilise advancing and
enterprise and the beneficiaries and operationalisin
social help to transform g the
entrepreneurship social relations by effectiveness of
improving SI in Europe
beneficiaries’ access
to power and
resources.”
SOCIAL New ways for Building of a social Draw upon the With main focus Create
POLIS researchers and platform considered combined on social cohesion sustainable and
217157 stakeholders to as a SI (stimulated by experience, in contemporary reliable ties
(Social develop a holistic SSH) in urban knowledge and city, there was between
Platform) and integrated research, policy and views of little effort to use communities of
comprehension practice collectively practitioners and SI in a historical theory and
of social cohesion building a research researchers who context practice to
in cities. agenda. work on prioritise urban
strengthening social cohesion,
cohesion, implement
integration, and knowledge and
inclusion in foster
European cities as stakeholders'
well as cities in involvement in
other continents. research
25
IMPROVE Evidence based “actions and Bottom-linked Post-war welfare- Multi-scalar SI
290613 approach to initiatives aimed at character of local SI, state poverty- system. Local SI
poverty, social the satisfaction of especially in labour reduction politics, as an impetus
policy and SI in social needs that are market, ethnic economics and for macro-level
Europe; not adequately met minority education, policies. Case and EU-wide
Research on the by market and macro- housing and studies mostly policies for
potential of SI to level welfare policies homelessness recent and poverty
foster social (content dimension) contemporary. reduction;
inclusion through the identify
transformation of obstacles to the
social relations consolidation
(process dimension), and diffusion of
which involves SI.
empowerment and
socio-political
mobilization (political
dimension linking the
process and content
dimension)”
WILCO Identify SIs represent a SI for social Historical- Open
266929 innovative and combination of new cohesions, with institutional view governance
emerging “products” and new particular focus on on local styles by local
practices to “processes” service and governance under authorities and
counter social (including the internal governance a welfare regime broad support
exclusion. Make organisation of innovation coalitions for
recommendation decision-making and bottom-up
s for encouraging ways of interacting initiatives, as SI
local SIs with the to improve
environment) livelihoods of
EU citizens
FP7-Health
INNOVAGE Secondary focus. SIs encourage activity, Draws on the model Not really, but Agency of
(306058) Used to describe have a focus on of SI process. reviews social
X a type of action equity, are likely to international best innovators.
to promote need a gender practice in the Need for SI to
active and perspective and are field of overcome
healthy aging – part of a wider policy active/healthy barriers to
the point of this context that should aging. extending
project is to involve health in all healthy life
catalogue and policies. They should expectancy.
promote such be participative and
actions. empowering while
respecting national
and cultural diversity
across and within
nation states around
Europe and the world
while offering
sustainability and
value for money. SIs
had to embrace
several of these
principles in order to
be included in the
survey.
26
EuroFIT Not the focus. None given Sport and public Not for SI Engaging
(602170) Seems to be an health vulnerable
X add-on people in
(legitimising healthier
buzzword) – lifestyles.
claims to be an SI
in itself.
FP7-Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Biotechnology
FUSIONS Secondary focus. new ideas (products, Theoretical framing Not for SI Networking
(311972) Used to describe services and models) relates to food and
AUX a type of action that simultaneously waste – no information
to prevent food meet social needs theorising evident exchange.
wastage – the (more effectively than on SI. Attention to
point of this alternatives) and institutional
project is to create new social dynamics, but
catalogue and relationships or in relation to
promote such collaborations. food rather
actions. than SI.
FP7-Environment
TESS Focus is on Not defined Co-evolutionary Not evident for SI Community
(603705) grassroots/comm theory in relation to based
X unity-based diffusion of initiatives for
sustainability innovations. achieving goals,
initiatives – SI not Community outside
used in project development governmental
description but theory. Focus on processes
working paper integrating natural
refers to ‘socio- and social scientific
technical frames.
innovations’ and
‘grassroots
innovations’.
FP7-ICT
IA4SI develop Not defined Digital SI as new ICT Contemporary Digital SI and
(611253) methodology and based services Collective
tools for impact Awareness
self-assessment Platforms
of SI initiatives
FP7-Energy
S3C Smart grid and Not mentioned None None End-user
(308765) smart energy engagement
X technologies through Smart
using innovative Customer,
products and Consumer and
services to Citizen view
provide added
value to end
users
FP7 - NANOSCIENCES, NANOTECHNOLOGIES, MATERIALS AND NEW PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGIES - NMP
NANODIODE Developing None None None Innovation
608891 Innovative governance;
Outreach and responsiveness
Dialogue on of nanotech
responsible research and
nanotechnologies innovation to
in EU civil society societal needs
and values
Source: elaboration by the authors
27
The projects described in table 3 are unevenly connected to SI. We have made a distinction
between projects that have SI as a main focus (XXX in table 3), projects that make use of at
least one dimension of SI, or use SI as a window to examine a particular sector, such as the
social economy (XX), projects that consider SI on the sideline or refer to SI as improved
communication between various actors involvement in innovative projects (X), and finally
projects appealing to SI discourse to fit the call text, but did not engage sufficiently with SI to
be assessed on an equal basis with the others (AUX).
A first analysis of the reviewed projects shows that most of the eight recommendations by
Jensen and Harrisson in their Policy Review paper of 2013 (Jenson and Harrisson, 2013) have
been taken into account in the new wave of projects. They identified five policy areas for
further research and presented eight recommendations for future research. The
recommendations were (1) to concentrate research on institutional (meso) and individual
(micro) levels and not the societal level, (2) to encourage cross-level discussion among
projects, (3) to establish a forum to discuss the conditions for treating Social Innovation (SI)
as an input or as a result, (4) to encourage researchers to actively include the stakeholders as
co-producers of knowledge, (5) to focus on historical precedents, (6) to establish a forum for
cross-project assessment of commonalities in the conceptualization of SI, (7) to establish a
mechanism for cross-project work on a consensual definition of SI, and (8) to critically assess
the normative content of concepts such as ‘good’ and ‘new’. The five mentioned areas
identified for further development were SI in (a) health, (b) rural areas, (c) the financial
sector, (d) the private sector, and (e) SI for managing diversity.
(ad. 1) The projects continue to focus on meso- and micro-levels while treating the macro-
(societal) level as a context variable. (ad. 2, 3, 6, 7) The cross-level comparison of projects,
the interchange of information on the conceptual and empirical basis of SI is now facilitated
by networking efforts (most notably in the project SIC). While these efforts have proven to
be successful in gathering research and information on SI, the efforts towards cross-project
work on defining and theorising SI remained scarce. Nevertheless, the differences in the
conceptualisation of SI remain, and there are very few cross-references between the
‘entrepreneurial’ and the ‘radical’ schools. Therefore, SI remains a ‘quasi concept’ (Jenson
and Harrisson 2013, p. 10) with common ground but without a common definition
throughout the projects. In some of the projects not centrally focused on SI (e.g. GLAMURS,
28
SEFORIS) there is no explicit conceptual discussion, while others (e.g. SIC) refer to the
definition of the EC-project TEPSIE (Young Foundation, 2012). (ad. 4) Most projects include
stakeholders in their research and/or publication strategies, as will be further highlighted in
section 3.3. The two mostly neglected recommendations by Jenson and Harrisson (2013)
were (ad. 5) the role of history and (ad. 8) the addressing of the normative and empirical
grounding of concepts such as ‘good’ and ‘new’. While the latter concern has been included
with the help of notions such as ‘empowerment’ (ImPRovE) or ‘transformation’ (TRANSIT),
the former concern has entered the case study works (e.g. in the projects ImPRovE and
TRANSIT), but mostly remained a future challenge.
Considering the five research fields identified by Jenson and Harrisson (2013), the issue of
health has been most prominently taken up, as explicit focus of the projects EuroFIT and
INNOVAGE, and as an important policy field in InnoServ. The projects on food processing and
consumption (FUSIONS, Protein2Food, S3C) also touched the issue of health, but did not
engage as thoroughly with SIs promoting health. The financial sector is examined by
TRANSIT in their case study about credit unions (Dumitru et al., 2015), while the private
sector has been the focus of projects focusing on ‘social entrepreneurship’ and CSR (BENISI,
SEFORIS, TRANSITION). SI in the rural areas is the explicit focus of SIMRA, which
unfortunately had reached only 1 year of project running time at the time of assessment.
The issue of managing diversity has been taken up in the projects ImPRovE (conceptually and
through its focus on Roma; cf. e.g. Vercseg and Bernát, 2015), InnoServ, and other projects
dealing with social inclusion (e.g. SOCIETY). Gender, as an important issue concerning
managing diversity was not an explicit issue in the reviewed projects. Many examples of SI
involve a transformation of gender patterns, e.g. through the substitution of paid care work
by unpaid labour or the substitution of domestic labour by voluntary community-based work
(cf. e.g. André, 2013). In order to prevent the re-appearance of a ‘strategic silence’ (Bakker,
1994), it would be advisable to include gender more explicitly in future research and
coordination efforts.
Table 4 gives an overview about the different orientations in the analysed projects. Only
projects that have SI as an explicit focus are included here (X – XX- XXX in our classification,
Appendix 1).
29
Table 4: Approaches of Social Innovation (1 = primary approach, 2 = secondary approach or
approach taken in some aspects)
Approach Identifying features Projects

Managerial Practical focus on entrepreneurial strategies and 1 TEPSIE; CRESSI;
‘enabling’ policies. SIC; TRANSITION
Normative focus on addressing social problems and
economic participation 2 ITSSOIN;
Links to management, organisational and technical TESS; RESPON-SEA-
innovation literature BLE; MOBILITY4EU
Systems Practical focus on scaling processes 1 SIMRA

Normative focus not strongly foregrounded
Links to ecosystems and complex adaptive systems 2 GLAMURS;
literature SEFORIS; IMPROVE
Social change Practical focus on how social practices change 1 SI-DRIVE; TSI;
Normative focus not strongly foregrounded TRANSIT
Links to sociological literature on social change
dynamics (esp. Tarde) and social practices (Shove) 2 ITSSOIN;
INNOSERV;
INNOVAGE;
EUROFIT
Territorial Practical focus on institutional dynamics and 1 SOCIAL POLIS
development spatial scale
Normative and analytical focus on collective 2 IMPROVE;
empowerment TRANSIT; WILCO
Links to political economy and urban studies
literatures
Close attention to historical and territorial context
Governance Practical focus on state – governance relations 1 IMPROVE

Normative focus on social protections and
democratisation 2 TRANSIT; BENISI;
Links to political economy and governance SOCIETY; FUSIONS
literatures
Creativity Practical focus on creation of new entities 1 Protein2Food

(organisations, programs, products).
Normative focus on creativity 2
Arts and culture invoked as sites of strategic action
Technology and Interlinkages between technology and society. 1 SOCRATIC

Society Social impacts of technological change.
Engagement with end-users and stakeholders 2 IA4SI; S3C;
NANODIODE;
SEACHNAGE
Meta-theory, Practical focus not foregrounded – object of 1 SOCIAL POLIS
critique etc. enquiry is SI scholarship, policy and practice
broadly conceived 2 TEPSIE
Attentive to conditions of knowledge production
In general, critical of neoliberal governance
discourses
30
4 of the 7 identified streams are well represented in EU-funded research; indeed, the FP 5, 6
and 7 have largely supported the development of these bodies of work, in that the key (i.e.
most highly cited) authors within each also appear as Lead Partners on several of the grants,
especially in the territorial development and governance streams. However, Table 4 shows
that since the last policy review report (Jensen and Harrison 2013), there has been a strong
shift in favour of the entrepreneurial and social change approaches. Moreover, where the
primary concern of projects has been the development of networks or the interactive
definition of policy implications in more specific fields of enquiry (third sector, sport,
lifestyle, food, youth, etc.), it seems that SI tends to be applied in an instrumental way, with
little attention to either the concept’s intellectual heritage, the structural causes of
inequality, or the deep contextuality of social change. This in turn implies a possible link to
the fact that the instrumental/entrepreneurial discourse dominates the content of EC policy
documents – some projects explicitly draw on these documents for their definition of SI. 5
3.3 Research methodologies in SI research
Given the highly multidisciplinary and in many projects interdisciplinary nature of SI

research, as well as its close connection with practice and policy, it is important to look at
variation in methods used, and to establish some principles for evaluating methodological
approaches. We have previously argued (Moulaert et al., 2013a; Moulaert, 2016) that an
ethical approach to SI research should be attentive to its own potential to shape social
relations, to meet human needs and to empower those normally marginalised in socio-
political life and, crucially, within the methodological norms of traditional scholarship. That
is, we believe that SI research should strive to be socially innovative.
This implies that SI research should have three crucial characteristics:
1) It should be interdisciplinary, in the strong sense of enabling the critical logic(s) of social
science disciplines to interact with others – such as those in humanities, business, health,
natural and physical sciences. This means not simply that different forms of expertise
5
This link needs further enquiry, but makes sense if SI being added onto the methods as a buzzword to please
the funders.
31
contribute discretely to understanding or solving a problem, but that communication
between disciplines reconfigures new forms of empirical investigation, analysis and
meta-theoretical development (REFS).
2) It should be transdisciplinary, meaning that interested participants from outside of
academia are closely involved in the research, not simply as informants and/or ‘users’ of
the research, but as co-producers and partners who help define the research questions,
methods, analysis and dissemination formats in a continuing reflexive process – what we
have called transdisciplinary problematisation (Novy et al. ; Moulaert and Miciukiewicz
XXXX). Transdisciplinarity in SI thus needs to go beyond conventional models of practice-
led research, by engaging people in need (as well as other SI ‘practitioners’) in deep,
critically informed, analytical dialogue.
3) It establishes platforms to enable this exchange, enabling people some choice of
languages, expressive formats (including non-linguistic forms such as artistic expression,
etc.) and modes of communication (including face to face as well as virtual). Such
platforms may cater for both closed and open networking.
Table 5 summarises the most relevant H2020 and FP7 projects’ methodologies. Particular
attention is given to the involvement of practitioners and opportunities for interaction with
policy/governance processes. Also highlighted is the development or use of an existing
analytical framework, a shared language for producing and exchanging knowledge within the
projects. This is important because it reflects a (shared) problematisation of SI practice, and
shapes the critical orientation of the analytical dialogue.
32
Table 5: Methodologies in EC-funded SI research
PROJECTS Methodology keywords Analytical framework Methods used Involvement of Place in governance
practitioners process?
H2020
5.i ICT
SOCRATIC Agile Innovation Agile Innovation Life-

Methodology; Cycle, providing guidelines
(688228)
about how to perform each
ExtremeFactories
(RIA) stage from Ideation to
Methodology
Implementation,
X
Exploitation and Follow-Up
SC2 Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine/water research, bio-economy.
SIMRA Comparative case studies; Evaluation framework to be To be developed – aim to Intent is for co-construction Policy makers included in
mixed methods; developed – aim for combine quantitative and of analytical framework. transdisciplinary aspect.
(677622)
transdisciplinary; living labs adaptable consistency qualitative methods Mechanisms for this a bit
WP devoted to policy
(RIA) across case studies. unclear at this stage.
Following case study analysis and developing
XX Intent is for co-construction analysis, implementation of Emphasis on use of social recommendations from
of analytical tools with ‘innovation actions’ (living media and networking case study + innovation
“people involved in rural labs) events in dissemination WP. action findings.
development practice”
‘innovation actions’
connected to specific rural
SIs, especially in
development of networking
opportunities and markets.
33
SC6: Europe in a changing world – inclusive, innovative and reflective societies
SIC Networking No. Analysis not part of the Invitations through known Practitioner involvement is Public sector innovators
method. networks. the only point of the project. directly involved.
(693883)
Stakeholder types:
Establishment and Special “Policy Portal” on
(CSA)
maintenance of interactive - public sector innovation, website.
XX website. - digital SI Part of aim is to support
Organisation of - intermediaries stronger links between
supplementary off-line - social economy actors public sector and social
activities innovators.
FP7
Socio-economic sciences and humanities
InnoServ Case studies; networking; Developed from literature Lit Review/analytical 3 practitioner networks are Public sector actors form
transdisciplinary on innovation, looks at: framework full partners in the project advisory board, and
(290542)
and there is also an advisory ongoing broader
- Drivers (change and 20 case studies –
(CSA) board of public and involvement through
challenges) presentation and analysis of
community sector virtual platform and
X - Response practice, documentation in
stakeholders. workshops
- Novelty video and written formats
- Hallmarks of Innovation Online discussions and
Online discussions and
workshops – broader
workshops based on case
participation.
studies
Workshops contributed to
project evaluation.
BENISI Networking; business Analytical framework for Selection of 300 SIs with Practitioners are effectively Scaling models for general
incubation understanding what enables scaling potential, through clients of this project. use, potentially can help
(604868)
upscaling – developed from interview process. policy makers creating
(CSA) the findings but not part of Establishment of open, web- enabling environments for
methodology. based network for SEs.
X
information sharing.
34
Development of various
models for upscaling – not
clear how. Establishment of
an award. Monitoring and
recording lessons
TRANSITION Networking; business No. Analysis not part of the Selection of 300 SIs with Practitioners are essentially Unclear, but intent seems
incubation method. However, process scaling potential, from clients of this project. to be to trial the model.
(604849)
based on established existing networks. Governance arrangements
They were asked to evaluate
(CSA) business principles. are a crucial part of what
Business incubation in the service.
the labs consider in the
XX Also consideration of “scaling centre” –
scaling process.
‘social impact’ kept at the networking, planning,
centre of the incubation training, feasibility etc.
process.
“Transnational start-up lab”
Evaluation process may - support to extend SI
have been based on a initiative into other places.
framework.
Glamurs Cross-disciplinary Cross-disciplinary Qualitative approaches to Participation in workshops, There is an agenda to

perspective: economics & integration of economics advance causal connections respondents of surveys (e.g. lobby for better integration
613420
psychology; time-use and psychology & a between patterns of time-use time- of alternative
(CP-IP) workable combination of and engagement in
perspective; carbon footprint use), briefing sheets and organisations promoting
qualitative and quantitative sustainable initiatives.
X(X) assessment videos as part of environmental
methodologies.
Quantitative approaches to dissemination efforts. sustainability into
quantify theoretical
governance settings
relationships into formalised
models of lifestyle change,
economic system change
towards sustainable
systems of consumption-
production through an
Agent-Based Model.
35
Seforis Survey; literature review; Organization of social ‘Massive Open Online Respondents to surveys. Improved governance;
database enterprises in market and Course’ (MOOC) on the service delivery;
613500
society, institutional context
insights into challenges and simplified/ efficient
(CP-FP) of social entrepreneurship
strategies to grow social bureaucracy; education for
informed quantitative
X(X) impact by social entrepreneurs
research
social enterprises,
Third Sector Online stakeholder survey; Analytical framework in Literature review on civil Online surveys and semi- Improved governance,
Impact (TSI) semi-structured interviews; scientific procedures; inputs society issues & surveys structured improved service delivery,
literature review; quantitative of stakeholder workshops assessing situation of Third less
613034 interviews
empirical research; case Sector Org.
bureaucracy
(CP-FP) studies
Online stakeholder survey,
XX supplemented by
semi-structured interviews
SocIEtY Participatory research; Focus on understanding the mixed-method: participatory Young people as experts of Young peoples’
quantitative research; mixed aspirations and research their own lives. Some work participation; improved
320136
methods carried out with the help of governance, service
perceptions of young people combined with quantitative
(CP-FP) social workers. delivery; efficient
and to inform the research.
bureaucracy; citizen
XX quantitative analysis.
education
SI-DRIVE Mapping; case studies, Yes. Iterative process aims Global mapping exercise – Establishment of “Policy Policy advice a key aim of
iterative theory building; to develop a typology of precise methods unclear; Field Platforms”, but not the project. Reference to
612870
interdisciplinary SIs. Dimensions: >1000 SIs mapped. clear how these work. structured discussions
(CP-IP) between social innovators
- Concepts and 82 in-depth qualitative case 7 of the partners are non-
and policy makers, but not
XXX understandings studies across 7 policy fields university think tanks,
clear how. Followed by
- Addressed societal needs – main methods seems to be consultancies, businesses or
“multilevel foresight and
and challenges interviews. non-profits.
governance discussion”
- Resources, capabilities Advisory Board of roundtable.
and constraints researchers from both uni
- Governance, networks, Idea that SI and policy
and independent sectors.
36
actors
some involvement in the support each other –
- Process dynamics
conferences. All fairly Project to inform on
(NB this project contains ‘high-level’. required competencies and
the only meaningful collaborations.
There is a call for
reference to gender that I’ve
information on the website.
found among them).
TRANSIT Case studies, mixed methods, Yes, dimensions: Document reviews, As subjects. No clear evidence, other
iterative theory building, interviews, participant than as a consideration for
613169 - agents Some feedback on synthesis
interdisciplinary. observation. analysis.
- co-evolution and socio- report.
(CP-IP)
material context Publication of Practices
XXX - agency and Briefs.
(dis)empowerment
In general practitioner views
Key focus of synthesis is given weight in
Critical Turning Points. dissemination.
CRESSI Advanced statistical analysis; Based on Beckert, Sen and 3 comprehensive case Discussion groups input into Workpackage 6 devoted to
case studies Mann, but positioned within studies based on secondary integration exercise. policy implications,
613261
economics. historical data. included a number of
Otherwise unclear.
(CF-FP) roundtables and seminars.
Dimensions: 4 individual case studies
XXX (particular initiatives) –
- Institutions, networks and
secondary sources,
norms questionnaires, interviews.
- Power sources and
system dynamics Review and cross
- Incentive structures comparison of evaluation
- resilience tools and measures,
development of integrated
evaluation framework
Application of above to
‘integrated’ case studies –
secondary data,
questionnaires and statistical
37
analysis.
ITSSOIN Comparative case studies, Context analysis Hypotheses developed None evident, other than as Unclear.
interdisciplinary dimensions: national based on lit review informants – mostly
613177
political-economic; policy providers rather than clients.
2. Context analysis
(CF-FP) review; media review;
published surveys on citizen 3. Detailed lit review,
XXX
perception desktop research and
interviews on
Case study analysis based
on hypotheses - too many to 4. Case studies of
list. ‘innovation streams’ across
4 cities in each field –
interviews with experts;
semi-structured
questionnaires with
participants in relevant
organisatoins; desktop; intra
and cross-national
comparative analysis.
TEPSIE Practice scans; theoretical Measuring SI; barriers to Case studies: organisations As users Service delivery. Social
models of behaviour and SI; capital flows for SI; and enterprises that use SI enterprise and social
(290771)
causation; idea sessions; Engaging public to meet social needs entrepreneurship.
(CP-FP)
IMPROVE Poverty trends and indicators; Social policy improvement; interdisciplinary, mixed and Respondents to surveys, Service delivery; social
local based policies; mixed alternative policy scenarios; comparative method: semi-structured interviews; exclusion and inclusion
290613
methods; local SI governance quantitative social policy interaction through focus
(CF-FP) research, qualitative SI groups of different
research stakeholders
SOCIAL POLIS Transdisciplinarity; Action- Plural economy; social Science communication Interaction with researchers Local welfare systems;
research; communities of cohesion; co-production of between experts & activists; in urban context; exchange diversity; multilevel &
217157
snowballing to unroll with policy makers and SI multi-scalar modes of
38
(CSA-SA) practice collective action stakeholders networks; practitioners governance;
WILCO historical-institutional Innovations in local Largely qualitative Through EMES Public sector funding
welfare; social vulnerability cutbacks;
266929
& exclusion
(CF-FP)
INNOVAGE replicability, person User priorities for housing Mixed methods and web Strong involvement through
environment fit, InformCare provision through an App platform the portals and the pilot
(306058)
platform initiatives
(CF-FP)
X
FUSIONS Food waste management Life Cycle Assessment European Multi-stakeholder Little focus, except for
(LCA). Global Warming Platform Environmental
(311972)
Potential (GWP) was governance;
(CSA) calculated for a set of
indicator products
AUX
TESS CBI, Assessment Toolkit, Analytical framework for Fertile soil metaphor to Practitioner-researcher Local democratic
MRV (Measuring, Reporting, studying community-based study success and networks (Sustainable governance;
(603705)
verification) initiatives constraints of community- Transitions Research
(CP) based initiatives, perceiving Network)
them as living organisms
X
with a diversity of
rationalities and multiple
tensions
39
Despite the difficulties in comparing coordination and support actions with research and
integration projects, which have rather different generic aims, some overall trends can be
observed across Tables 3 and 5. There is, as might be expected, a strong tendency for large
scale research projects to be multi- or inter-disciplinary, but often in the ‘weak’ sense of
including partners from social sciences and humanities to deal with specific considerations –
largely associated with communicating the ‘hard’ science. In particular, most of the projects
thematically linked to specific policy fields (SOCRATIC, PROTEIN2FOOD, SEACHANGE,
RESPONSEABLE, MOBILITY4EU, EUROFIT, FUSIONS,IA4SI, S3C, NANODIODE) draw on
theoretical and analytical frameworks in which the crucial roles of social relations and
governance institutions in enacting change are rather poorly represented.
Importantly, the active inclusion of stakeholders is becoming a common approach, with non-
academic partners participating in the research and various opportunities for input built into
the WPs. At the very least, this means that practitioners and policy makers are involved in
the research as sources of information (for example through interviews, surveys and
observation), and also as the intended audience for some of the deliverables, especially
policy briefs (e.g. ITSSOIN, SEFORIS, TSI). However many projects go well beyond this
minimal level of participation. All of the coordination actions target practitioners, as clients
(BENISI, TRANSITION) and/or as active partners in knowledge exchange (SIC, InnoServ, TESS).
Some go still further, providing concrete means for practitioner organisations to direct the
research and take a leading role in its conduct and dissemination (FUSIONS, Social Polis);
these appear to be aiming for true transdisiplinarity. These coordination actions also
provide for open platforms, beyond the projects’ formal partnerships, enabling much
broader participation to snowball. Some of the research and integration projects also give
stakeholders an active role in direction setting, for example through membership of an
advisory board (SI-DRIVE, WILCO), participation in strategic workshops (CRESSI, TEPSIE,
Glamurs, SocIEtY, ImPRovE) or via an Internet platform (INNOVAGE); as a rule the role of
non-academic participants is weaker in these projects.
We see this trend as positive. However, there is still a long way to go. Transdisciplinary
research, as we describe it, requires more than providing opportunities for communication
and involvement in steering, particularly if it is to contribute to social inclusion. While some
of the coordination actions have facilitated highly inclusive knowledge partnerships (Novy
40
ref), this has not extended in a major way to the research and integration projects. Crucially,
in general the majority of non-academic participants are rather ‘high-level’ stakeholders (i.e.
network coordinators, consultancies, policy-makers and analysts), rather than grass roots
actors. But when projects are focussed on social inclusion (e.g. ImPRovE, InnoServ, SocIEtY,
TSI) there is a tendency to include service providers rather than the involved populations or
target social groups themselves. We see this as a significant gap. While we recognise the
value of advocacy, particularly for certain groups of people that may lack the desire or ability
to represent themselves (e.g. very young people, people with mental disabilities, some
elderly people), it is still important, both to the realisation of social rights and to the rigour of
related research, that more effort be made to involve people – and to find appropriate
means to do so – directly affected by social exclusion (cf. e.g. Leubolt and Romão, 2017).
Creative forms of disseminating results for stakeholders outside the academic community
include ‘Practice Briefs’ (TRANSIT), video presentations (GLAMURS, InnoServ), and posters
(GLAMURS, ITSSOIN). Given the international character of the projects, it is rather surprising,
that many projects publish their results only in English. Notable exceptions were TRANSIT
and GLAMURS, producing some of the ‘Briefs’ also in regional languages of the involved
project partners. Given the importance of active stakeholder involvement within the
reviewed projects, the question of language should be more centrally considered for future
dissemination efforts.
41
4 COLLECTIVE ACTION, PUBLIC and SOCIAL INNOVATION
Given the importance of collective action in the early SI approaches of the 19 th and 20th
centuries, it first appears rather as a surprise that many contemporary 21 st century
conceptualisations do not emphasise the role of politics and collective action. Especially the
“Anglo-American entrepreneurship studies” literature, with the focus on “new ideas that
work” (Mulgan, 2007, p. 9), does not give central emphasis to the political dimension,
despite the focus on “new ideas (products, services and models) that simultaneously meet
social needs and create new social relationships or collaborations” (Murray et al., 2010, p. 3).
In contrast, the “democratic” or “radical” tradition emphasizes governance and power
relation, as “SI is about social inclusion and about countering or overcoming conservative
forces that are eager to strengthen or preserve social exclusion situations” (Moulaert et al.,
2013a, p. 17). Therefore, both include “social relationships or collaborations”, but with
important differences concerning the notions of societal conflict and the prerequisites of
empowerment or the meeting of peoples’ needs. As already indicated in the previous
chapter, the dual reading of SI does not fully capture the range of different approaches.
Instead, it will serve as a point of departure, marking a continuum of different approaches.
The following section will deal with the question of collective action in recent SI research. It
will be structured in four subsections. First, the different definitions and understandings of
the political, politics and policy will be examined. The most important characteristics are the
strong focus on networking and a tendency towards the scaling of SI initiatives. Second, the
role of different societal sectors and types of collective actors will be analysed. Third, the
socio-political embeddedness of SI initiatives will be questioned against its transformative
potential. The fourth subsection observes the changing role of SI in collective action and
public policy. Compared to the 1990s and early 2000s, a tendency from ‘talking’ to ‘doing’ is
observable.
42
4.1 Different definitions/understandings of the political, politics and policy:
networking and the move from mainstreaming to scaling
The analyzed projects respond to different sources of general criticism of actually existing
politics and policy making. While managerial projects explicitly (e.g. CRESSI, SEFORIS) or
implicitly (e.g. TRANSITION) treat state and/or policy failures as major obstacles to be
overcome, many other projects have a more balanced view, and also deal with potential
market failures (e.g. GLAMURS, TRANSIT, TSI). This general focus has further consequences
for the privileged sectors and types of collective actors (cf. 4.2) and the perceived role of SI
in policy making (cf. 4.3 and 4.4).
The historical heritage of SI as societal collective self-organisation is only reflected in a

limited number of research projects, despite of a widespread focus on networks and
networking. Most projects stress the importance of networking for efficiency of SI, with
different implications. Some projects (e.g. TRANSIT, GLAMURS) investigate networks in their
case study research, others directly engage in networking: The ‘TRANSITION’ project
presents the foundation of the European SI Incubation Network (ESIIN) as a major outcome
of the project (TRANSITION 2016, p. 36). The ‘Social Innovation Community’ (SIC) project can
even be seen as a structured effort to assist networking of European SI practitioners through
its project website (https://www.siceurope.eu/). While the target group of the ESIIN appears
to be rather narrowly defined as social entrepreneurs, SIC’s target group is more widely
defined and also includes researchers, policy makers, social movements, and the wider
population.
Another important effort towards enabling and/or facilitating networking has been taken up
in the project SI-DRIVE. Similar to efforts in the sector of the Social and Solidarity Economy
(SSE), a mapping of SI-initiatives has been set up. Inspired by efforts of the Brazilian
government to provide public assistance for a largely self-regulated and -regulating SSE
sector (Gaiger et al. 2014), mapping in connection with an openly accessible online-database
can crucially facilitate networking efforts of locally organized SI initiatives. While the
database is still under construction, the mapping efforts are promising further advancements
for networking among SI practitioners and other stakeholders.
Networking is presented as a vital process for the engaged agents to be able to exchange
information about their experiences. ‘Good’ or ‘best practice’ experiences should serve as
43
examples for others to follow. This process has been described as 'mainstreaming', which
should provide the basis to create similar experiences. In the TRANSIT project, this notion
has been problematized, as a danger of “capture dynamics” has been alerted (Bauler et al.,
2017), leading to adoption of dominant ‘mainstream values’ by SI initiatives at the price of
losing emancipatory potential. Recently, the notion of mainstreaming has been replaced by
the notion of ‘scaling’ or ‘replicating’ (TRANSITION 2016, p.35): Differing from the conception
of ‘mainstreaming’, ‘scaling’ is less concerned with policy making and the public promotion
of ‘best practice models’, but rather interested in network exchange between practitioners
to multiply solutions that work. A good example is the TRANSITION project, focusing on
‘scaling’ of social businesses, defined as “the process through which an example of SI moves
from one country to another one, thereby increasing its impact to better match the
magnitude of the social need or problem it seeks to address” (NESTA et al., 2015, p. 10).
Interestingly, the proponents of scaling did not engage with the academic debate of scale (cf.
Brenner 2001; Keil/Mahon 2009; Swyngedouw 1992), prominently featured in the works of
the territorial development perspective on SI (e.g. Moulaert et al. 2002). This literature
volunteers great examples of strategic approaches in scalar politics and socio-political
mobilization across scales.
Proponents of the territorial development and governance perspectives (e.g. Moulaert et al.
2013b; Oosterlynck et al. 2013b; Haxeltine et al. 2016) tend to be less enthusiastic
concerning the possibilities of ‘fast’ mainstreaming best practices or scaling solutions that
work. As development is defined as historically specific and context-dependent, local SI
practices have to be understood in a historically contextualized multi-level governance and
institutional framework which cannot easily be scaled into different social, cultural, and
economic contexts. A good example for the respective perspective on SI policy making has
been developed in the project TRANSIT, focusing on ‘critical turning points’ (Pel et al. 2017)
fostering or endangering transformative SI.
4.2 Role of sectors and types of collective actors (State, Third Sector, Business,
…)
According to the different conceptualizations of SI, different societal sectors and types of
collective actors are prioritized in the projects. Some (e.g. CRESSI, SEFORIS, TRANSITION, TSI)
44
emphasize the role of third and/or the private sector. Despite this similar focus (often
summarized under the heading of ‘managerial’), the differing degrees of problematizing
state and/or policy failures leads to different conceptualizations on the respective roles. The
social business focus on “ideas that work” (Mulgan, 2007, p. 9) in projects such as CRESSI or
TRANSITION is most strongly connected with solutions for state failure by social
entrepreneurs. It does not emphasize major differences between third sector and for-profit
organizations. This is a major difference to the approach taken in the TSI project, in which
the researchers emphasize the difference and point out major problems of third sector
organizations under stress due to austerity and neoliberal reforms, promoting the for-profit
sector at the expense of the third sector (Zimmer and Pahl, 2016).
With its focus on employment conditions in third sector organizations (ibid.), the TSI project
also sheds light on an aspect which has been neglected in many other research projects on
SI. The widely acknowledged advice by the Bureau of European Policy Advisors, that “[i]n the
current economic climate, it is essential to do more with less and to do it better” (BEPA,
2014, p. 93) with “new institutional models based on social innovation” (ibid.) rather argues
from the perspective of clients of social services. Therefore, the resulting precarization of
employment conditions (involving more unpaid work), has often not been the focus of
research efforts on SI. This issue also concerns the question of sustainability of SI
organizations, as there are negative impacts on the motivations and professional
qualifications (especially due to the higher turnover of employees) of people working in the
third sector as a result of the deteriorating working conditions (Zimmer and Pahl, 2016).
The latter issue already concerns the state as a central actor in SI processes. Before 2008,
some adherents of SI (e.g. Mulgan, 2007) praised it as a ‘bottom-up’ solution, which is
necessarily the better alternative to ‘top-down’ state action. While the more ideologically
driven dichotomy between negative ‘top-down’ state influences and positive ‘bottom up’ SI
has lost ground, austerity politics influence a more pragmatic approach on the matter. The
‘SocIEtY’ project is a good example, highlighting this role of SI explicitly in its final conceptual
report: “At the macro and meso level it is obvious that social innovations besides the social
element are closely linked to the economic aspects of welfare solutions: How is it possible
within the public sector to offer welfare to more people for less money? In the matter of the
micro level we see how social innovation is clearly linked to a non-profit and a predominant
45
social and individual purpose. At the same time it is also linked to the quality pf [sic!] public
services” (Brahe, 2013, pp. 128-129). Thereby, SI is conceptualized as a ‘fill in’ for ‘loopholes’
in the welfare state as a result of the rising fiscal constraints. The dangers of ‘governance
beyond the state’ in relation to SI have already been alerted by Swyngedouw (2005) and re-
affirmed by various authors (e.g. Peck 2013; Meichenitsch et al. 2016). Nevertheless, the
warnings of the ‘Janus face’ (Swyngedouw 2005) of SI continue to be neglected.
Even in research projects favoring the actions of the private sector in reaction to state failure
(e.g. SEFORIS), the state is treated as a vital actor, capable of promoting and supporting
social enterprises and to set regulations for fair competition between the different
enterprises (cf. ‘SEFORIS Cross Country Report’, p. 34). Other projects go further, advocating
for a more active role of the state. The project ‘ImPRovE’ proposes ‘bottom-linked’
governance, “which recognises the centrality of initiatives taken by those immediately
concerned, but stresses the necessity of institutions that would enable, gear or sustain such
initiatives through sound, regulated and lasting practices and clearer citizen rights
guaranteed by a democratic state-functioning” (Oosterlynck et al., 2013a , citing Moulaert,
2010). In other projects, such as SI-DRIVE or GLAMURS (Fischer 2016), the state is recognized
as very important, as the majority of initiatives bases on a public entity as organizational
background.
4.3 SI: socio-politically embedded or socio-political transformer
Many projects (e.g. SocIEtY) depart from the logic proposed by the Bureau of European
Policy Advisors, that “[i]n the current economic climate, it is essential to do more with less
and to do it better” (BEPA, 2014, p. 93). The historical roots of the concept (cf. chapter 2) of
radical change and renewing the old seem to be rather weak in such accounts.
Nevertheless, the research projects feature the spirit of renewal in some aspect, mostly not
in the sense of envisioning a broader societal transformation, but rather in the sense of
better service provision or other specific improvements. E.g., the project GLAMURS focuses
on the ecological transformation towards more sustainable lifestyles. While grounded on
individualistic assumptions, most policy recommendations clearly go beyond individualistic
solutions, but rather aim at government promotion of socio-ecological grass root initiatives
46
(Dumitru and Carrus, 2016; Fischer, 2016; Polhill, 2016). The most pronounced
transformative approach has been presented by the project TRANSIT, which is focused on
socio-economic, socio-political, and socio-ecological transformations, promoting a more
socially inclusive society (Avelino and Wittmayer, 2016). SI-DRIVE also explicitly focuses on
the questions of societal change and transformation (Howaldt et al., 2015).
SI in its concern to ‘improve social relations’ highlights the need to go beyond the rather
mechanistic top-down perspective characteristic of a large number of policies in Keynesian
inspired welfare states (Jessop 2002). The project SocIEtY is a very good example, promoting
the active participation of vulnerable and/or disadvantaged young people in policy making
(Brahe 2013). This perspective differs from approaches with more directive and top-down
oriented perspectives, as presented in a respective policy review paper (Ule et al. 2014).
Another example with a focus on empowerment and the active involvement of practitioners
can be seen in the project GLAMURS. Despite its neglect in reflecting on the concept of SI, its
implications for the active involvement of practitioners go way beyond traditional
approaches in economics and psychology. Instead, the GLAMURS policy briefs call for the
break down of barriers between scientists and practitioners (Polhill 2016) as an essential
step to support transitions towards more sustainable lifestyles (Dumitru/Carrus 2016).
4.4 New views on the role of SI in collective action and public policy
The empowerment dimension of SI appears to be highly compatible with the transformation

of European welfare states towards more activating social policy regimes (Oosterlynck et al.
2013a, 2013b; Sabato et al. 2015). The active involvement of citizens is a major feature of SI
initiatives and therefore combines well with the policy shift from bureaucratically managed
rather paternalistic welfare states to activating social policies. The observed projects reflect
this tendency well, with focus on third sector organisations (ITSSOIN, TSI, ), social business
(BENISI, IA4SI, SEFORIS, TEPSIE, TRANSITION), civil society and stakeholder networks (SIC, SI-
DRIVE, Social Polis, TRANSIT), the focus on ‘governance beyond the state’ (Swyngedouw
2005) is clearly set. The projects on the inclusion of vulnerable people and improvement of
social policies (CRESSI, IMPROVE, InnoServ, SOCIETY, WILCO), the promotion of ecological
lifestyles and health (EuroFIT, GLAMURS, INNOVAGE, TESS), food security and sustainable
47
agriculture (FUSIONS, Protein2Food, SIMRA), and technology (NANODIODE, SOCRATIC, S3C)
centrally feature this aspect of the active involvement of civil society in policy making.
Despite this central commonality, there are also important differences. Some of the projects
tend towards the inclusion of practitioners as clients (e.g. BENISI, TRANSITION) or diagnose a
tendency of SI practitioners to refer to their constituencies as ‘clients’ (e.g. IMPROVE). This
managerial approach to the relationship between economy and society tends to consider
the social economy as an aggregation of individual social enterprises. This conception of the
social economy – and therefore also the socially embedded economy as a whole – does not
adequately reflect its advanced degree of institutionalization, its market dynamics, its typical
relations of production and cooperation, etc. (Hamdouch et al., 2009), or its articulation with
the wider social world. This economistic and reductivist account of the social economy has
three mutually reinforcing weaknesses. On the one hand, it tends to ignore the distinctive
macro-economic aspects of SI as an interactive ensemble of practices; in addition it neglects
the economic aspects of SIs that are not immediately economic in their objectives – such as
the democratization of the educational system, the pursuit of gender equality, or the
psychiatric liberation movement (Chambon et al., 1982); and, finally, it puts so much
emphasis on economic agency that it pushes other types of socially innovative agency,
including those in the social economy, to the background.
The managerial view of SI appears to be less concerned with the active involvement of
citizens in decision making than in the execution of decisions. The potential of participation
and empowerment has especially been prominent in Latin American examples of SI, such as
participatory budgeting (Novy/Leubolt 2005), the Social and Solidarity Economy
(Leubolt/Romão 2017), or the Via Campesina movement (Juarez et al. 2015). On the
European scene the cases in the SINGOCOM project as explained in ‘Can neighbourhoods
save the city?’ (Moulaert et al. 2010) are good examples of politically empowered SI
community initiatives. These examples centrally feature the active participation of social
movements in the policy making and public administration process. Of the analysed projects,
only TRANSIT, SI-DRIVE and IMPROVE dealt with such Latin American case studies as possible
inspirations.6 Further research could benefit from the inclusion of empirical studies and
6
Other important venues for the discussion of SI are China, India, and Canada (Majumdar et al. 2015). While
SEFORS dealt with China as one of the case studies, India and Canada have not been used explicitly for case
studies.
48
research teams in non-EU-membership countries as possible inspirations (see Cipolla et al.
2016).
Furthermore, the role of civil society as active clients of SI services also gives a hint to
another transformation in the dealing with SI. During the 1990s and early 2000s, efforts to
promote democracy on the local scale were more pronounced (Moulaert 2000;
Cooke/Kothari 2001; Swyngedouw 2005). As mentioned before, current projects tend to be
more concerned with ‘solutions that work’ in welfare states under fiscal pressure. This move
‘from talking to doing’ overcomes previous dilemmas of participation without clear results
(which led to frustration of the participants and the hollowing out of participatory settings;
cf. Cooke/Kothari 2001), but does so at the expense of excluding people from decision
making. Thereby, the ‘Janus face of Governance-beyond-the-state’ (Swyngedouw 2005) has
been altered, but not substantially changed. Emancipatory transformative SI will have to
tackle the challenge of accompanying the move towards ‘doing’ with more ‘talking’ in a
sense of participation in decision making processes. The notion of bottom-linked governance
(Moulaert et al. 2013a; Garcia et al. xxxx) is an attempt to unify ‘talking’ and ‘doing’.
49
5 THE ROLE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE IN POLICY DESIGN AND
RESEARCH
These are critical times for policy and governance in the European Union. The movements in
geopolitical tectonic plates around the world and evolutions in Europe (such as Brexit,
migration, extremisms, threats to democracy in Member States and neighbouring countries,
…) demand a renewed focus on social cohesion, socio-political inclusion and empowerment
through policy design and implementation. This will necessarily require socio-political
transformations. This process also allows an opportunity to (re)consolidate the policy stance
at different spatial scales, particularly in the diverse neighbourhoods and communities. It is
worth noting that much social policy discourse has exploited the potential and strengths of
local communities through top-less-bottom-up actions. Discourses such as Big Society in the
UK (cf. Zimmer and Pahl, 2016, pp. 19-20) gave responsibilities (and blames) to local
authorities and communities without any clear support to the provision of sufficient
resources or capacity building. In this respect the Integrated Area Developed in the EU’s
URBAN and LEADER programmes were much more coherent. A number of European
research projects reviewed above confirm that various socially innovative actions initiated
with success by individuals and communities through exhaustive efforts failed to sustain
themselves in the absence of clear policy or political support. A general lack of top-down
support and encouragement beyond vague promises tends to create an atmosphere of
uncertainty and distrust. When this happens, vulnerable individuals and groups (workers in
declining industrial areas, middle class groups in evolving socio-economic conditions, people
with special needs, youth, elderly, migrants, refugees, etc.) are likely to be exploited
economically and weakened socially, leading to further growing socio-political friction and
tensions within and among communities. This threat of social exclusion and violence calls for
a stronger role of analysis and research, in particular of Social Sciences and Humanities
(SSH), to revive scientific and political debates on social change, equality/inequalities,
practices of democracy and socio-political transformation, particularly in terms of gender,
cultural, ethnic, religious, and other structural exclusions. This, in turn, implies that attention
need be given to the importance of micro-initiatives and their transformative potential in
different sectors of society.
50
The evaluation of various FP funded projects (which address SI related issues, whether
directly or indirectly) reveal that the intellectual capital through the concepts, approaches,
policies and practices in SI has matured to an extent where we can no longer demote SI to a
vague, confusing, half-baked or conflicting notion. The historical research, empirical work,
observations and evidence-base in SI policy, practice and activism have moved beyond
simplistic notions, narrow arguments and unrestrained definitions. SI has over time become
a recognised scientific anchor with a coherent ontological and epistemological stance, which
requires attention, understanding and respect, and which, at the same time, offers
opportunities to reinvigorate the role of science and in particular SSH in (European) Research
and Development approaches and policies.
Attentively reading through the SI literature covered in this Policy Review, a number of
critical issues – positive and negative – concerning the future of SSH in Research and
Development became manifest. The guidelines for this reading refer to the different
dimensions of SI, beyond the duality flagged up in section 3.1.
First, even the most technologically and market-oriented projects emphasise the role of
communication, cooperation, respect and mutuality in information exchange, knowledge
production and value co-production. This is the most explicit link to the second dimension of
SI, i.e. (re)building social relations. However, these projects remain vague on the nature of
social dynamics, and how social relations are built and governed. Diverse social sciences such
as sociology, anthropology, psychology, urban and regional development, to name just a
few, could have brought significant added value to their analysis of social change.
Unfortunately, the absence of interdisciplinary cooperation with SSH limits considerably the
potential of these projects, and therefore their economic and social relevance.
This leads us to the second critical, somewhat paradoxical observation. Horizon2020
emphasises the benefits of interdisciplinary endeavours. However, the selected proposals
too often show little actual interdisciplinarity and are coordinated by teams or PIs with
thematic expertise but insufficient interdisciplinary affinity 7. Few hard science coordinators
really understand how to valorise SSH knowledge to the benefit of their projects, and tend to
deal with it as a salute to ethics, an add-on to otherwise technological efforts or an awkward
7
A recent EU report on SSH intergation in Horizon 2020 shows that in 2015, only 39% of the projects funded
under topics especially designed for interdisciplinary research with SSH, showed a good integration of SSH. See
https://publications.europa.eu/fr/publication-detail/-/publication/acac40f5-e84b-11e6-ad7c-01aa75ed71a1
51
way to further the social acceptance of tools or technology . Alternatively, they privilege
technological tools to social communication, thus downplaying the role of psychological and
sociological insights or the instruments of participatory processes in dealing with the
complexity of social relation building, trust, solidarity, communicative rationality, a.s.o.
Third, and partly deconstructing this paradox, there still is a long way to go in building true
interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research practices to address societal challenges. We
will come back to this observation in the final subsection of this paper. But important steps
forward could be: shared education in philosophy of science and epistemology across
different sciences, better integration of interdisciplinarity in defining topics, revision of
evaluation procedures in Framework Programmes (e.g. the panel should be capable of
evaluating inter and transdisciplinary skills of the research consortium), better monitoring of
actual interdisciplinarity practices in projects funded by the Framework Programmes but also
outside, selective support to collaborative interdisciplinary efforts in key areas of socio-
technological development.
Fourth, the split between fundamental research – In Europe especially funded by the ERC –
and so-called Research and Development funded especially within Horizon 2020 and
national research programmes needs particular attention. Our evaluation exercise has
revealed that some of the projects would have benefited significantly from closer
connections with fundamental research on e.g. socio-ecological systems, socio-political
transformation, social practice, evolution theory (which by itself has become quite multi and
even interdisciplinary), sociology, political science and geography theories and empirical
research on governance, to take but a few examples.
Fifth, the lack of historical perspective remains prominently symptomatic in several projects.
The norms of the high-speed society have also affected the world of science which, with the
exception of history and some other humanities disciplines, no longer devotes time to the
history of theory and practice in its various fields. This amnesia has a high price because it
too often means reinventing the wheel or altogether forgetting it has already been rolling for
centuries. It is a serious concern that contemporary research often tries to relaunch
established concepts, situating them outside their own life-trajectory, and almost completely
overlooking how they were established and treated in the history of thought and practices
(Moulaert et al. 2012).
52
5.1 Towards a coherent epistemological practice in SI research
With these critical observations in mind, we now return to what we learned from the cross
reading of SI research under various Framework Programmes, yet referring to several more
critical reflections on the scientific and policy status of SI research. We have structured these
‘lessons learned’ in a diagram with key concepts which evokes the history of thought of SI
from the 18th century and weaves the messages from history into an integrated approach to
SI. We use these lessons to reflect on the desired future for SSH research within an
interdisciplinary world (section 5.2) and even make some concrete suggestions for SSH under
FP9 (sections 5.3).
Figure 1: Key Concepts of Social Innovation: from historical lessons to a contemporary

synthesis
Source: authors
To fully grasp the meaning of the synthesis in the diagram it is important to keep the
reflections from the previous sections in mind. For example, as to the lower part of the
diagram, the use of the concept of SI is history-and-context bound. This means it should be
‘read’ in connection with the philosophical and socio-political debates, the collective actions
53
of their times and, for the more recent period, the theoretical exchanges of the time. The
flows and cycles of history from one period and concept to another also need to be kept in
focus. For example, the change in the understanding and practice of SI from more
revolutionary (e.g. the struggle for the individual right to vote) to collective action for social
change (e.g. building the social economy, the welfare state, the celebration of diverse
emancipation, …) needs to be kept in focus when looking at contemporary theory-building,
social practice and collective action.
Turning our attention to the upper part of the diagram: the historical trajectory of the
concepts and practices of SI is highly relevant for identifying and deepening the different
dimensions of and perspectives to SI today. E.g., the complexity of “Direct”
“Representative democracy” as a contemporary issue in which SI and governance have an
important part is better understood using the historical trajectory of socio-political regime
building between revolution and change, collective action and private enterprise, social
economy and polity building as a mirror. Doing so, analysts and policy makers will certainly
understand that public choice theory can only be one of the perspectives to work toward the
transformation of democracy, and that theories of social change and transformation,
institutionalization, regime theory, … with a much deeper understanding of ‘human and
social forces’ than many of the more ahistorical theories, need to be taken into account in
reflecting on and mobilizing for the future of democracy. Another example concerns SI as
micro-initiatives. If we analyse and design today’s social and solidarity enterprises in terms of
the contemporary analysis and mainstream economics only, we could easily overlook how
social economy, as it materialised at the turn of the previous century, was a multi-scalar
process involving the organisation of cooperative enterprises, the building of social and
solidarity movements, political mobilisation which significantly influenced both Christian
democratic and Social democratic parties, among others. The social economy was
institutionalised through law making and public administrative practice; but also through the
establishment of social economy, welfare economics, social policy, etc. as scientific and
educational disciplines. Similar questions should be examined when addressing the rise of
the social and solidarity economies as well as the various grassroots movements today.
Of course the historical ‘playback exercise’ which we suggest in the figure does not mean
that all these dimensions should be taken into account in every research on SI. It is meant as
a beacon for keeping attention on what important dimensions of SI exist today, in the light of
54
what we learned – or are willing to learn – from the past. Depending on the topics examined,
the dimensional foci may vary, as suggested by the two ellipses in the figure. The upper right
ellipse suggests research on SI that focuses more on social change and socio-political
transformation whereas the lower left ellipse focuses on SI as organisational change and
community development. This does not mean for example that in this more micro-reading of
SI direct and representative democracy would be less important, but that it should be
primarily conceived, theorised and implemented at the level of the enterprise, the social
organization, the cultural association, the local political party, … with multiscalar reflexive
democracy and bottom-linked governance as the custodians of these ‘micro’ entities’ place
and role in the rebuilding of a democratic society.
5.2 Reconfirming the prominence of social science in the analysis and design of
socio-political change
Social Sciences and Humanities are not auxiliary sciences, occupying a support function to
the ‘hard’ sciences, or serving as the social manual to facilitate the cooperation between
actors involved in transdisciplinary research coordinated by hard scientists or economists
working from a purely rationalist perspective. At the outset of this section 5, learning from
the cross-reading of the SI projects, we expressed some concerns about the role of SSH in EU
research. Most projects coordinated by ‘hard’ scientists recognise the role of SSH, especially
with respect to the analysis and facilitation of network and platform (building) or various
forms of “social acceptance”. Yet, the social dynamics involved are often ignored or not fully
grasped, approached in a too rationalist way, in many ways far too remote from the social
complexity in which networks rise, subside and fall. Several projects, also often coordinated
by social scientists, are often too epistemologically focused, meaning that they only address
the questions directly related to their theme, thus falling in a trap of what we used to call
‘atomism’, i.e. isolating the agency and behaviour of particular types of actors from their
structural and institutional environment. The cross reading of the SI projects also reveals the
need for further research and practice in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, and
a necessity to reinforce bridges between fundamental and applied research in and across
various disciplines. A final observation concerns the lack of historical perspective in
theorising, epistemological and methodological choices. We may consider this as an
55
expression of contemporary and persisting modernism-cum-technological euphoria; but
productivism including permanently expected high-speed delivery of tangible products in all
fields of activity including science is also a direct cause of the compression of history, not the
least in SSH. This makes SSH extremely fragile in relation to hard sciences which, much more
than SSH, find history embodied in their tangible products and inventions. In contrast, SSH
must refer to the reality of organisations, groups, networks, communities, social relations,
societal structures, etc. which, although very tangible in people’s lives, are hard to phrase
and communicate especially in a world where truth must be simplified into pre-established
categories, yet still evidence-based; a world with little room for historical records,
etymology, narratives, etc. Several explicit symptoms of how SSH have dealt with ‘new’ so-
called interdisciplinary theories should be taken seriously. Complexity theory as one example
puts upfront reality as an ensemble of complex systems and agencies. It relies heavily on a
critical perspective on ‘historical’ systems theory from the 1960s. But hardly any research of
societal dynamics and human agency adopting a complexity theory perspective, makes use
of the impressive body of theories and empirical research in SSH explaining the complexity
of human relationships and societal dynamics. A similar observation can be made about
SSH’s relation to co-evolution theory. While this theory holds a relevant view of the co-
evolution of human and non-human systems, it remains opaque on the role of power
relations, dynamics of institutionalisation, cultural diversity in human behaviours, the
transformation of socio-ecological systems and the place of human agency in this process.
Also Socio-Technical Systems approaches could learn from SSH, especially as to the relative
autonomy of societal processes and the political dynamics of how such systems become
institutionalized, fragmented or disintegrate.
Public policy and policy assessment increasingly rely either on systems-based models in
which rational behaviour is heralded as the only human behavioural type that counts. Most
of these models are incapable of accounting for the qualitative dimensions of social and
human life, diversity in human actions and reactions, the impact of power games, and so on.
Thus, this reliance leads to an exaggerated confidence in the existent socio-political system,
its policies and policy assessment methods. Nevertheless, reality shows how individualism
encouraged by various forms of liberalism– with the individual as the rational agent par
excellence – and so called “rational” policies have led to a new imbalance between the
56
economic and the social, between civil society and the state – to put it in post-Polanyian
terms.
The future FP9 research programme has potentially an important role in correcting this view
of the complex society in which we live. The next and final section makes some suggestions
to this end.
5.3 Recommendations for R&D policy in SSH and SI
Using lessons drawn from SI research under the various Framework Programmes (including
Horizon 2020) as a mirror to evaluate the State of SSH in European research, several
recommendations can be drawn on how to better profile and organise SI and also SSH
research under FP9. We have grouped these recommendations under five headings:
fundamental versus applied research; thematic versus discipline-based research; SSH and SI
research; and, epistemological progress.
- Fundamental versus applied research
Although ERC and the collaborative research under Societal Challenges are both parts of
Horizon2020, little interaction exists between these two programmes. Several of the projects
that we screened could have benefited from fundamental research undertaken under ERC
wings. The danger of stressing too much the applied R&D character of Horizon2020 research
is the loss of connection with fundamental (research) results essential to the quality of R&D.
Very often the distinction between fundamental and applied research is artificial. Most
research needs ‘root’ theories, access to the State of the Art and
epistemological/methodological support. These needs can often be met by (results from)
fundamental research.
Practically speaking, improved dialogue between research units working in the ERC executive
agency and the research DGs and the Research Executive Agency (REA) should be organised.
Exchange of research agendas and reallocation of proposals between the two should be
considered with the purpose of a mutual enrichment of fundamental and R&D research.
57
- Thematic versus discipline-based research
We have flagged up some of the problems stemming from thematically organised research.
Prominent were the lack of cross-disciplinary understanding and the tendency of ‘hard’
scientists to take over the lead and enclose social dimensions into ‘scientific’ models and
assessment methods or separate “add-on” exercises. However, this observation should not
justify a return to just disciplinary and occasionally interdisciplinary research under FP9.
There are other ways to address these problems.
First, thematic research should be coordinated by a multi-disciplinary team that has proved
its competence in interdisciplinary research. This team should thus have knowledge of all
relevant disciplines and their relevant approaches; skills to bring the logics of different
disciplines together; knowledge of existent interdisciplinary research on the theme;
experience or can show a learning trajectory in interdisciplinary research.
Second, the EC should organise platforms or roundtables in which scientists express their
intentions to pursue and competence in interdisciplinary research. Such platforms can
become breeding grounds for interdisciplinary thematic research proposals and projects.
Third, there should also be room for discipline-based research on a particular theme (e.g.
local governance of lifestyle changes against unsustainable consumption practices).
However, such research should include a ‘dialogue’ component, exploring the ways in which
other disciplines relevant to the theme have studied and addressed it.
Fourth, although transdisciplinarity – collaboration between different types of actors

relevant to a theme’s agency – remains the main option for doing interdisciplinary research,
scientists belonging to different disciplines should keep their prominent role in the selection
of research topics and approach. Yet other actors may have an important role in determining
the modes of cooperation between different actors within the research trajectory. Recent
work on transdisciplinary problematization and knowledge alliances, involving different
groups of actors – also citizens in fragilised socio-economic and socio-political positions – can
serve as a starting point here.
- SSH and SI ‘own’ research
58
The end of a specific research programme on the biggest socio-economic and political issues
of Europe under Horizon 2020 has probably been one of the greatest concerns among social
scientists in Europe8. It is important to question and analyse the reasons behind this
important policy change at EU level. It is our view that given the deep worries of EU citizens
on their present and future, a fully developed separate Societal Challenge on the future of
democracies, societies and economies in Europe should be re-established under FP9 , its
budget should be sufficient, its ways of selecting topics and analysing outcomes and impacts
revised. This is all the more important as the first preoccupations of European citizens are
not technologically related. According to a recent EUROBAROMETER survey of December
2016, the European citizens’ main concerns were socially related, in order or priority: 1)
unemployment, 2) social inequalities, 3) migration, 4) terrorism and security, 5) the public
debt of EU member States 9. This clear specificity in terms of socially and politically related
concerns has been recognised by the interim evaluation of H2020 report of May 2017 which
quotes the “issues Europeans are more concerned about” as, in order of priority: 1)
immigration, 2) terrorism, 3) economic situation, 4) the state of Member States public
finances, 5) unemployment, far before climate change of the environment, let alone
technological progress10. Alarmingly, none of these top concerns is translated in research
priorities of Horizon 2020 since only a small part of the least funded Societal Challenge,
Societal Challenge 6, addresses these concerns 11. This reveals a very large gap between
European citizens’ priorities and research priorities which needs to be fully addressed.
8
Societal Challenge 6 of Horizon 2020 is a mix of left-over programmes from FP7 with little internal coherence
as shown by its work programmes 2014-15 and 2016-17. According to estimates, only about 41% of SC6 budget
is attributed to SSH research, which marks a considerable decrease of funds compared to Theme 8 (“Socio-
Economic research and the Humanities) of FP7, although Theme 8 represented only 1.2% of the overall FP7
budget. The European Commission has made it clear several times there is no longer a “SSH programme” but
rather that SSH is “embedded” as a cross-cutting issue across H2020. As a consequence, SC6 is not even
identified as a specific Directorate in the European Commission DGs, contrary to all other Societal Challenges.
More importantly, this means that several important aspects of the Juncker’s agenda regarding fairness and
democratic change in particular cannot be met and research in this field from FP6 and FP7 had to be stopped.
See relevant figures and analyses in the EC paper “Issues paper for the High Level Group on maximising the
impact of EU research and innovation programmes” (page 103-108) at
https://ec.europa.eu/research/evaluations/pdf/hlg_issue_papers.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none .
9
See the EUROBAROMETER Survey at :
http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/instruments/
SPECIAL/surveyKy/2131
10
See the Commission staff working document for the “Interim Evaluation of Horizon 2020” page 54 at:
http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/instruments/
SPECIAL/surveyKy/2131
59
Calling for a special research programme on the future of democracies, societies and
economies in Europe may sound contradictory to the appeal for reinforcing interdisciplinary
research. Yet it is not, for several reasons:
- Because of their sheer number, SSH scientists, unless they sell their soul to various privy
political, economic or financial interests, have much more limited access to research funding
than scientists from other disciplines (as shown already by the fact that the lowest success
rates have been found in Theme 8 of FP7 and SC6 of H2020). To guarantee the quality of SSH
research, financial instruments for SSH based research are essential.
- As the SI mirroring exercise of SSH has shown, SSH is increasingly put under pressure to
adapt the high-speed rationalist modes of work and modes of visioning complex reality. To
remove this pressure, and to create new opportunities for valorising social science
trajectories – many of which are mentioned in this policy paper – sufficient research budgets
should be guaranteed.
- SSH have been precursors of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research for decades
and should be encouraged to pursue their efforts. They have created interdisciplinary fields
(urban and regional studies, human ecology and geography, governance studies, policy
studies, …) in which interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary cooperation has been conceived
and implemented. Significant parts of this research could not be valorised properly, because
of budget constraints and undue scientific competition, etc. Valorization of SSH research of
all previous FP programmes could be an important programme point for FP9.
- Many theoretical bodies, historical trajectories of science practices need ‘actualisation’ – cf.
the playback metaphor we used in figure 1. The question of how contemporary allegedly
‘holistic’ theories (such as complexity theory, co-evolution theory, socio-technical systems,
human ecological systems theory, etc). relate to and communicate with typically SSH
development, change and agency theories certainly needs to reappear on the agenda. If not,
the long and precious history of social science – a significant part of European identity – risks
becoming lost to new wave theories based on rationalisation and compression of the rich
and diverse critical intellectual history of Europe.
11
Not even by the ERC since, as the same Staff Working Document of the Commission regarding the interim
Evaluation of Horizon 2020 makes it clear, none of the 25 « key hot and emerging research fronts in which ERC
grantees are working » is directly socially related (see above, page 57, figure 19).
60
- From the critical survey we carried out, new topics emerged that deserve examination, not
least from a SSH perspective. Certainly:
* How to reintegrate equity and redistribution into EU policy models?
* Macro-economic and social policy critiques of austerity policies
* Institutionalism culturally and socially revisited
* Institutionalisation of SI and socio-political transformation
* Bottom-linked governance, scalar politics and socio-technical transformation
* Tensions between direct and representative democracies under Europeanisation and

globalisation
* The future of nationalisms, the building of responsive political ideologies and the
construction of solidarities beyond national borders
* Democratic and society-feasible higher education
- Epistemological progress. Longevity and slow science
An undercurrent to this evaluation exercise was frustration about high-speed science.

Publish or perish, tumbling from one project into the other, revising methodologies on the
basis of hasty comments from peers and competitors, etc. In terms of scientific progress
under FP9 the message here is to allocate research money in a more flexible way, also to
high risk projects in the epistemological sphere. The questions ‘What, how, (and with whom)
to research, and how to valorise’ research, deserve attention by themselves. A first step here
would be to commission some foundational survey projects on inter- and transdisciplinary
research. The last few decades have witnessed several projects addressing these issues, also
in the FP. But a state of the art has never been published. Yet it is this type of project that
considers the relationships between the scientific and other communities in Europe.
This issue also relates to the ontology of higher education and research in general. There is
an absolute necessity to slow down the pace of competition, and to devote quality time to
compare approaches, theories, relevance of science for improving the quality of life, the
sustainability of society and the socio-political systems existent at different scales in Europe.
61
More specific topics concerning epistemology and modes of doing science include: syntheses
of different approaches to Sociology of Knowledge and Knowledge Production;
operationalization of Sociology of Knowledge in Action and SI research; evaluation of Living
Laboratory Methodologies from a SSH point of view.
62
6 CONCLUSION
To be written after feedback from the experts.
63
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69
8 APPENDICES
Annex 1: Reading Template SI Research Projects
For any of the items to be completed needing more than say 5-10 lines please refer to the Report,
WP report, article, preferably by providing a URL, a document name and page numbers.
Alternatively, larger sections of relevant text can be added at the end of the template (but please
provide complete reference).
When citations are used, please also make sure to provide complete reference and page number(s).
1. Project outline
Name of project
URL (project)
URL (CORDIS)
Type of action /
instrument
Main researchers
Budget
End date
Start date
Date of summary
Objectives - key
words
Abstract
Key publications /
outputs of the
project
(add full refs to
bibliography)
2. Role of SI in the project
2.1 Is SI the main object of the

research?
2.2 How is it used?
(buzzword / realm of practice /
analytical concept / etc)
2.3 Definition given of SI
2.4 Key references/influences (SI)
(add full refs to bibliography)
70
2.5 Other privileged
concepts/fields
(note how connected to SI if
relevant)
2.6 Attention to history of SI
thought and practice? Over
what period? What tradition?
(include refs if relevant)
2.7 Useful quotes/illustrations?
(give full ref/page no)
3. Application of SI
3.1 What purpose does SI play in

the project and why?
(e.g. imposed by EU, artificial
link, tradition in field or
discipline, link research to
policy, analytical key, )
3.2 Particular domain(s) of
application?
(nb relevance to
practice/policy as well as
science)
3.3 Is there a tradition of SI related
research in this domain?
(give references if relevant)
3.4 Historical/geographical scope
of application
3.5 Analysis of barriers and
opportunities? Of what kind?
Develop briefly on following aspects of SI approach in the project
3.6 SI as micro-initiatives, micro-
organization, … market-based?
Civil society?
3.7 SI as networking among
initiatives, organizations?
3.8 Scalar /spatial dynamics: local?
Urban, rural, rurban? Inter-
local? Out-scaling? Local up?
National/regional down?
International relevance?
3.9 SI as a leverage for
empowerment of citizens,
workers, migrants, deprived or
service lacking human beings
and groups
71
3.10 SI as a socio-politically,
institutionally embedded
process?
3.11 SI in this project: does it have a
socio-political transformative
role? A socio-ecological
transformative role? A socio-
economic transformative role?
Is it a ‘learning process’ of
bottom-linked governance?
4. Methodology
4.1 Keywords used

4.2 Short description of method
4.3 Analytical framework
developed?
4.4 Involvement of practitioners –
in what way(s)?
4.5 Interaction with governance
processes and policy chains?
4.6 Comment: is method socially
innovative in itself?
(e.g. co-production/co-
creation; challenging
academic/practice boundaries;
creation of new types of
relations; …)
4.6 Dissemination forms
(nb for different audiences?)
5. Policy and politics – definition and development of the project
5.1 What policy domain(s) is it

concerned with?
5.2 Within a conventional policy
context? Or aiming to create
something new?
5.3 In reaction to policy and/or
market failure? How?
5.4 Policy aims – may be many
(e.g. civic/actor participation;
improved governance;
improved service delivery;
simplified/efficient
72
bureaucracy; citizen education
…)
5.5 Policy aims – from whose point
of view?
(e.g. EC, state, SI actors,
scientists, vulnerable people …)
5.6 Who are the intended
beneficiaries of the policy
outcomes?
5.7 Is there an agenda to
create/shape new political
arenas? To what end?
(include citations/page)
5.8 Is the project part of a broader
political movement? Radical or
otherwise? Explain.
(include citations/page)
6. Policy outcomes and link to SI
6.1 Are there policy

recommendations as part of
this project? Explicit/implicit?
6.2 Is the intent to create a new
policy domain; substitute ‘new’
for ‘old’ policies; tweak existing
policies …?
6.3 What are the
goals/consequences of the
policy recommendations, and
defined by who?
(addressing societal challenges
identified by EC, greater
economic efficiency,
coordination, new roles for
actors, subsidiarity, …)
(Give references if relevant)
6.4 Policy goals/consequences
linked to SI? How?
(e.g. social outcomes, changed
relations, empowerment,
addressing unmet needs,
political renewal …)
6.5 Relationship with other policy
fields/specific policies – as
reported by project
73
6.6 Conflicts/correspondence
between policy levels and
between political environments
identified? What?
6.7 COMMENT – project’s
(potential) contribution to SI
policy trajectory
(including the role of research
in policy advice)
6.8 COMMENT – implications for SI
R&D policy
7. Lessons from beyond Europe
7.1 Collaborations and roles

(include researcher and
stakeholder engagement)
7.2 Interesting cases

7.3 Any visible evidence of impact
(on analysis, on policy findings,
etc)
74

SOCIAL INNOVATION and The EU

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DRAFT POLICY REVIEW PAPER

Social Innovation as a Trigger for Transformations:

The Role of Research

Frank Moulaert, Abid Mehmood, Diana MacCallum, and Bernhard Leubolt

Directorate-General for Research & Innovation

Social Sciences and Humanities

under-employment, political and economic instability, terrorism, and ecosystem collapse, to

particular focus on 29 projects supported by Framework Programme 7 and Horizons2020,

importance of bottom-up and bottom-linked SI in responding to these. As a direct corollary,

interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity – both widely acknowledged as central to the

innovative potential of research – could be greatly strengthened by enhanced attention to

difference (gender, ethnicity, ability, age, etc.).

Roll-back neoliberalism Caring neoliberalism as latest stage of

2.1 The early period (18th-19th century)

Period/time Social transformation Social reform Micro-social innovation

1. Building of the welfare From capitalism to Labour and social laws

Table 2: Modern and contemporary meanings of Social Innovation

Concepts of SI Time period Societal context Particular ‘messages’ - Definitions

Weber M Relationship between Role of individuals with behavioural

3.1 A variety of approaches

In addition, there is a growing body of literature presenting meta-theoretical, historical and

3.2 EC funded SI research in this landscape

Project Role and Indicative definition Theoretical and Attention to SI aspects

Source: elaboration by the authors

Approach Identifying features Projects

Systems Practical focus on scaling processes 1 SIMRA

Governance Practical focus on state – governance relations 1 IMPROVE

Creativity Practical focus on creation of new entities 1 Protein2Food

Technology and Interlinkages between technology and society. 1 SOCRATIC

3.3 Research methodologies in SI research

Given the highly multidisciplinary and in many projects interdisciplinary nature of SI

This implies that SI research should have three crucial characteristics:

SOCRATIC Agile Innovation Agile Innovation Life-

SC6: Europe in a changing world – inclusive, innovative and reflective societies

Socio-economic sciences and humanities

Glamurs Cross-disciplinary Cross-disciplinary Qualitative approaches to Participation in workshops, There is an agenda to

(CSA-SA) practice collective action stakeholders networks; practitioners governance;

The historical heritage of SI as societal collective self-organisation is only reflected in a

4.3 SI: socio-politically embedded or socio-political transformer

The empowerment dimension of SI appears to be highly compatible with the transformation

Figure 1: Key Concepts of Social Innovation: from historical lessons to a contemporary

5.3 Recommendations for R&D policy in SSH and SI

- Fundamental versus applied research

Fourth, although transdisciplinarity – collaboration between different types of actors

- SSH and SI ‘own’ research

* How to reintegrate equity and redistribution into EU policy models?

* Macro-economic and social policy critiques of austerity policies

* Institutionalism culturally and socially revisited

* Institutionalisation of SI and socio-political transformation

* Bottom-linked governance, scalar politics and socio-technical transformation

* Tensions between direct and representative democracies under Europeanisation and

* Democratic and society-feasible higher education

- Epistemological progress. Longevity and slow science

An undercurrent to this evaluation exercise was frustration about high-speed science.

To be written after feedback from the experts.

2. Role of SI in the project

2.1 Is SI the main object of the

3.1 What purpose does SI play in

4.1 Keywords used

5. Policy and politics – definition and development of the project

5.1 What policy domain(s) is it