STREAM 14
Social Innovation Ecosystems

Social innovations are vital in coping with many of today's grand challenges. Hence, at least two main reasons exist for the increasing interest in Social Innovation Ecosystems. One is the scientific desire for a better understanding of social innovations' complexity and systemic character in which many initiatives fail, and few survive. The other reason is the political momentum of social innovation in recent years. Having the comprehensive history of technologically oriented innovation development in mind, it has prompted the question of the European Union and national and regional governments: How can we best support social innovation through favourable framework conditions? And what are these conditions in the first place? Unfortunately, 'little is known about the emerging needs of social innovators' (Audretsch et al., 2022: 217).

While the concept of the ecosystem is supposed to provide an adequate framework for understanding and studying the interaction of various actors, institutions, and contexts in society (Kumari et al., 2019), a coherent perspective for social innovation is still lacking (Terstriep et al., 2020). Relevant perspectives include beneficial and empowering networks (Pel et al., 2020; Kleverbeck et al., 2019), cross-sectorial interactions, and supportive environments, including structures and governance (Domanski et al., 2020; Eckhardt et al., 2021; Roy et al., 2019), and more.

By examining social innovation ecosystems, their evolution and dynamics and supportive policymaking, this stream invites papers that address – but are not limited to – the following questions:

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• What role does the ecosystem play in actors, sectors and networks' collaboration and co-creation activities?

• What are social innovators' and other actors' needs?

• Do actors' varying interests and power relations influence the formation and structuring of social innovation ecosystems? And if so, how and with what implications?

• At what geographical scales do social innovation ecosystems emerge (international, national, regional, local), and how do these interact?

• What is the role of ecosystems in the diffusion/scaling of social innovation?

• What is the role of social innovation ecosystems in societal transformation?

• What role do characteristics of the environment/context of social innovations and actor traits play, and what are relevant leverage points for policymakers' visioning to drive social innovation?

• What are examples of successful/failed ambitions to initiate and sustain social innovation ecosystems (including related policy measures)?

 

We invite for this stream inter-/transdisciplinary empirical papers that analyse the characteristics, mechanisms and dynamics of social innovation ecosystems while accounting for context-specific, conceptual papers that present theoretically grounded ideas of how social innovation ecosystems evolve, accelerate and sustain at distinct geographic scales as well as examples of policy action in support of social innovation ecosystems.

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REFERENCES

Audretsch, D. B., Eichler, G. M., & Schwarz, E. J. (2022). Emerging needs of social innovators and social innovation ecosystems. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 18(1), 217–254. doi:10.1007/s11365-021-00789-9

Domanski, D., Howaldt, J., & Kaletka, C. (2020). A comprehensive concept of social innovation and its implications for the local context - on the growing importance of social innovation ecosystems and infrastructures. European Planning Studies, 28(3), 454-474. doi:10.1080/09654313.2019.1639397

Eckhardt, J., Kaletka, C., Krüger D., Maldonado-Mariscal K., & Schulz, A.C. (2021). Ecosystems of Co-Creation. Frontiers in Sociology, 6:642289. doi:10.3389/fsoc.2021.642289

Kumari, R., Kwon, K.-S., Lee, B.-H., & Choi, K. (2019). Co-creation for social innovation in the ecosystem context: the role of higher educational institutions. Sustainability 12, 307. doi:10.3390/su12010307

Kleverbeck, M., Mildenberger, G., Schröer, A., & Terstriep, J. (2019). Regional social innovation networks. In S. M. Weber, I. Truschkat, C. Schröder, L. Peters, & A. Herz (Eds.), Organisation und Netzwerke. Beiträge der Kommission Organisationspädagogik (pp. 355-374). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-20372-6

Pel, B., Wittmayer, J., Dorland, J., & Søgaard Jørgensen, M. (2020). Unpacking the social innovation ecosystem: an empirically grounded typology of empowering network constellations. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 33(3), 311–336. doi:10.1080/13511610.2019.1705147.

Roy, M. J., & Hazenberg, R. (2019). An evolutionary perspective on social entrepreneurship 'ecosystems'. In A. de Bruin & S. Teasdale (Eds.), A Research Agenda for Social Entrepreneurship (pp. 13-22). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. doi:10.4337/9781788972321.00006

Terstriep, J., Rehfeld, D., & Kleverbeck, M. (2020). Favourable social innovation ecosystem(s)? - an explorative approach. European Planning Studies, 28(5), 881–905. doi:10.1080/09654313.2019.1708868