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Platform for Social Innovation and Social Enterprises
05/01/2026 - 04/30/2027
Research area Innovation and Education in the Digital Society | PD Dr. Christoph Kaletka | Dr. Katrin Bauer | Daniel Krüger
The platform serves as the central hub for all stakeholders in the social innovation ecosystem. It provides information on current topics in research and practice, and offers databases on funding opportunities, impact assessment tools, universities and experts. As part of the platform’s activities, research is being carried out into the integration of social innovation as a subject within universities. Workshops and other events are organised, and networks are being expanded.
Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space
The SIGU platform provides a nationwide digital infrastructure for information, networking and visibility for social innovations and social enterprises. It brings together practical information on funding opportunities, support services and key actors; enables the structured presentation and discoverability of socially innovative solutions; and, through discussion and networking formats, promotes exchange between practitioners, academia, policymakers and the funding sector.
The team at Social Research Center manages the Science Network, promotes the exchange of knowledge between Higher Education Institutions’ staff and practitioners through ‘Hot Topic’ workshops and monthly ‘Spotlights’, and is conducting a study on the framework of social innovation at universities.
The main objective of the project is to expand and sustain the platform through structural consolidation and strategic development. This encloses the activities, services and networks established between 2023 and 2026 with the aim of strengthening the social innovation ecosystem and its stakeholders in Germany.
In this context, the activities of the Social Research Center focus on strengthening the role of Higher Education Institutions within the ecosystem, with a view to contributing to the further development of innovation research and innovation policy, and to investigating the conditions and processes involved in the dissemination and anchoring of social innovation activities at Higher Education Institutions.
The study on the framework of social innovation at Higher Education Institutions is based on a mixed-methods approach and incorporates both qualitative and quantitative methods. Workshop formats and online communication formats (in particular ‘Spotlight’) play a central role in knowledge transfer and exchange.