Investigating the Institutional Embedding of Social Innovation at Five Leading Technical Universities in Europe

Abstract

Although the relevance of social innovation has been increasingly discussed in politics and science in recent years, the role of universities in social innovation ecosystems still needs to be determined. In particular, there is little research on the role of European technical universities in promoting social innovations. Thus, this article uses a document analysis to conduct a cross-country analysis based on five European technical universities. The results show differences in promoting social innovation at five European technical universities and can thus provide an overview of the situation at technical universities. In brief, the results indicate that, in line with previous research on social innovation at universities, the five technical universities have not established holistic approaches to promote social innovation and that implementing social innovation in research and teaching could depend on policy instruments and support mechanisms for social innovation at the national and university levels.