From 14 November to 15 November 2024, the „Gesellschaft für Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung e.V.“ (GWTF) held its annual conference in Dortmund. Over two days, different perspectives and results from science research were presented in three thematic blocks.

On 15 November, PD Dr Christoph Kaletka and Daniel Krüger presented on the approach of a recent research project for the SIGU platform (platform for social innovations and social enterprises), which is currently being funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research and supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. Fort he research project, the team from the Social Research Centre, consisting of PD Dr Christoph Kaletka, Katrin Bauer, Dr Ralf Kopp, Daniel Krüger and Marthe Zirngiebl, is currently investigating how the topic of social innovation is focused on at German universities in research, teaching and third mission and anchored in university strategies. For this purpose, the research team is pursuing a mixed-methods approach. On the one hand, this includes a complete survey of all German universities listed in the university database of the German Rectors' Conference. On the other hand, the approach is supplemented by interviews with university members. Here, members of different organisational units are interviewed - from university management to chairs and transfer centres. With this research activity, the team at the Social Research Centre is contributing to a better understanding of the framework conditions for social innovation at German universities. This complements the activities of the science network, in which the team brings together researchers in working groups, hot topic workshops and, most recently, at a university conference to exchange ideas and jointly develop topics relating to research and teaching on social innovation and its transfer within the framework of collaborative and co-creative approaches.

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