This report is a stocktaking exercise, undertaken from the perspective of fostering engagement of the European research community in a continuous exchange of ideas and best practices for analysing social innovation and in promoting networking among these researchers. It reviews research projects in social sciences and humanities funded by the European Union’s framework programmes five, six and seven.

These projects analyse challenges facing European policy communities and inquire about the contributions social innovations might make to address these policy challenges.

Part 1 identifies the notion of social innovation as one of five key themes identified in the European Union’s Europe 2020 strategy. This position makes social innovation a crucial field of research for social scientists and humanists, important for policy analyses within both the Union and Member States. Horizon 2020 will provide an opportunity for this potential contribution to be realised.

Part 2 charts the uses of the concept of social innovation in the research projects. After an initial examination of the varied definitions of social innovation used in the projects, the report charts why the projects identify social innovations as necessary, how they approach them, and what the projects consider social innovations to accomplish.

Part 3 of the report documents how the projects work with theory, noting  the interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary nature of the research as well as the explicit focus more on problems than on theory development. It also identifies the institutional and individual levels of analysis as the predominant ones used in these projects and charts the wide reach and multi-scalar approach to analysing social innovations.

Part 4 describes the dissemination practices of the projects. 

The report, including Part 5 which provides conclusions, makes eight ecommendations for future research practices on social innovation.