Co-creating a SOCIAL INNOVATION RESEARCH AGENDA for Europe
As many of you know, in August 2014 the EMES network embarked on a collaborative effort to give researchers the opportunity to co-create a future research agenda on social innovation (SI), bringing a variety of stakeholders to the table. The objective of this endeavour, part of Social Innovation Europe, was to stop repetition and overlap in research and effectively address the remaining gaps by collecting and reviewing used research approaches: where we stand with research on these topics and what is necessary.
We now present the result of this joint effort, which is a useful snapshot of themes addressed and research areas that we recommend to pursue. It involved a research community that shares the purpose to identify approaches to study social innovation free from instrumental objectives. A core group of researchers identified a selective number of topics and actions, covering different types of topics based on consultations during several international conferences; coordinators of 15 European projects on social innovation funded by the EU provided input on their research questions, research approaches and methodologies and open questions; online input came via a Facebook discussion group and an online survey. A group of experts provided final feedback. We wish to thank the many contributors and hope this exercise can be repeated regularly.