20.12.2019 – With the common goal of improving the position of young unemployed people in the labour market and against the background of high youth unemployment in the Mediterranean region, institutions from Italy, Spain, Portugal and Germany have joined forces in the EU project "ARTE - The Art of Employability". Scientifically accompanied by sfs, unemployed young people are supported on their way into the labour market by a combination of theatre projects and entrepreneurial job coaching.
01.12.2019 – On the 20th of November, a workshop about success and obstacles for social innovation labs was held within the SIKE project in Essen city’s Impact Hub Ruhr. Sabrina Janz and Adrian Götting from TU Dortmund University organized the event alongside with their SIKE partner Social Impact gGmbH and the project Beyond Divides.
22.11.2019 – From 28 to 29 October 2019 the ‘5th Global Research Conference: Social Innovation and Socio-Digital Transformation - Towards a Comprehensive Innovation Policy’ took place in Dortmund at the DASA Working World Exhibition. As a key event for Social Innovation in 2019, it successfully brought together more than 200 researchers, practitioners and policy makers from 40 countries in the field of Social Innovation and policy.
12.11.2019 – A series of events for stakeholders and employment agencies in the Erasmus+ project "JobAct Europe - social inclusion through social arts", launched at the beginning of the year, has now been successfully completed.
21.10.2019 – Prof. Jürgen Howaldt, Dmitri Domanski and Adrian Götting from TU Dortmund University visited Porto Alegre within the scope of the DAAD exchange project “Social Innovation in Collaborative Projects”. On the 23rd of September a workshop took place in which Prof. Jürgen Howaldt and Dmitri Domanski both held presentations, reflecting on different approaches with regard to the topic of social innovation. On the following day, Prof. Howaldt, Dmitri Domanski and Adrian Götting were invited to the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) to discuss further collaboration and plans to intensify the partnership with the TU Dortmund University.
16.10.2019 – On the 8th and 9th of October all involved partners started the BMBF project "Sociodigital Transformation towards Excellent Leadership and Labour” (eLLa4.0). The target of eLLa 4.0 is to support management executives to manage the digital transformation in their organisation. For this goal it is necessary to understand the operations and interactions of socio-digital systems and to develop “interactional competence”.
15.10.2019 – On the 27rd of September Prof. Jürgen Howaldt and Dmitri Domanski from TU Dortmund University visited the University of Montevideo, Uruguay. In a workshop organized by Prof. Judith Sutz and her team, Prof. Jürgen Howaldt presented the new Atlas of Social Innovation and held a presentation reflecting on the role of universities and social sciences with regard to the topic of social innovation.
02.10.2019 – Social innovation has increasingly been attracting attention. Countless approaches and initiatives illustrate the dynamism and potential of social innovation to address the most urgent societal challenges and develop continuously new solutions for pressing problems. At the same time, social innovation is gaining importance in coping with the fundamental socio-digital transformation by increasing the innovative capacity and future sustainability of society. It is regarded as an important factor to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by creating repeatedly new sustainable social practices in production and consumption. This second volume of the Atlas of Social Innovation provides a multi-perspective, comprehensive and international research overview on social innovation.
20.09.2019 – Dr. Ralf Kopp recently contributed a presentation to the congress “The Future of Work” of the Swiss Sociological Association which took place in Neuchâtel on September 10-12. The presentation was held in the workshop “Social innovation in the Workplace and the Future of Work. Outcomes for a social policy agenda in Europe and beyond“. All abstracts for the workshop are freely accessible.
19.09.2019 – From the 2nd to the 4th of September the world’s leading interdisciplinary social innovation research conference ISIRC took place in Glasgow. On this occasion, Prof. Jürgen Howaldt held a keynote, in which he stressed the importance of a comprehensive innovation policy. Dmitri Domanski, who also participated in the conference, presented an approach of the SIKE project, reflecting on different methods in order to foster knowledge exchange between academia and practitioners from other societal sectors.
16.09.2019 – From the 26th to the 28th of August, the final event of the Erasmus+ project Students for Change took place in Mexico City. During the event, different presentations were held about the topics of social innovation and social entrepreneurship, primarily in a Latin American context. Dmitri Domanski, Sabrina Janz and Adrian Götting from TU Dortmund University joined the event and the final discussions of the project. Thereby, Dmitri Domanski and Sabrina Janz held a presentation, reflecting on different methods and mechanisms to foster knowledge exchange between academia and practice with regard to social innovation.
11.09.2019 – A special issue on Workplace Innovation in the Era of Disruptive Technologies in the “International Journal of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation” shows why the digital transformation requires workplace innovation. sfs-researchers contributed to this publication the article "Sociotechnical perspectives on digitalisation and Industry 4.0".
03.08.2019 – The diverse and interdisciplinary research activities in the field of "Technology for Inclusion and Participation (TIP)" were the topic of a session of the same name at the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI 2019) conference in Orlando, USA.
18.07.2019 – Eu-SPRI (European Forum for Studies of Policies for Research and Innovation) is one of the most important research consortia on science, technology and innovation in Europe. Members and associates of the network meet annually. This year, the Eu-SPRI conference took place in Rome from the 5th to the 7th of June. Four researchers from TU Dortmund University were invited to present their research results and current projects.
12.07.2019 – On July 8, Jürgen Howaldt participated in the stakeholder-workshop "Social Innovation in the Field of Mobility" of the Hightech-Forum at the Fraunhofer Forum in Berlin. Together with experts from business, science, civil society and politics, the potential of social innovation in the field of mobility was explored and the specific requirements for the promotion of social innovation discussed.
11.07.2019 – Jürgen Howaldt was invited to participate in the high level Conference for Competitiveness in Helsinki on July 3rd. The conference „Enhancing Sustainable Growth: Skills And Smart Work Organization In The Digital Era“ was the opening event for the Finish Presidency of the European Council. In his presentation he spoke about the increasing role of social innovation for organizations in the digital era.
14.05.2019 – Between 6th and 8th of May 2019, members of the SIKE project (Social Innovation through Knowledge Exchange) met in Zagreb to talk about the progress of the project as well as to experience the social innovation ecosystem in Croatia. Dmitri Domanski and Sabrina Janz presented their current work in the project.
16.04.2019 – From the 8th to the 10th of April a meeting took place in Bogotá as part of the Erasmus + project "Students 4 Change", in which Dmitri Domanski and Sabrina Janz of TU Dortmund University participated. The Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios (UNIMINUTO) hosted the meeting in Colombia. The detailed exchange between project partners, lecturers, students and university executives took center stage of the event.
27.03.2019 – The European School of Social Innovation (ESSI), the Sozialforschungsstelle Dortmund (Central Scientific Institute of the TU Dortmund University) and DASA Working World Exhibition are delighted to announce the 5th Global Research Conference: Social Innovation and Socio-Digital Transformation – Towards a Comprehensive Innovation Policy, taking place on 28th and 29th October 2019 in Dortmund, Germany. It is going to be one of the key events on social innovation research and practice in this year. Because of limited space we strongly recommend to register early.
21.03.2019 – With the project “Social Innovation Community” (SIC) coming to an end, a yearbook was published at the beginning of March. The publication summarises the project and its findings in the context of social Innovation.
20.03.2019 – On 14.03.2019 the joint final event of the projects "KliMoPrax" and "UseUClim" in the BMBF-funded program "Urban Climate Under Change" was held at the DFB Museum in Dortmund. The event was organized by the sfs (Central Scientific Institute of the TU Dortmund University) in collaboration with the Research Institute for Water and Waste Management at RWTH Aachen (FiW). The results of the project were presented to, and discussed with, representatives from municipal practice.
20.03.2019 – Between March 11th and March 15th 2019, members of the project SIKE (Social Innovation through Knowledge Exchange) visited their Iberian partners to gain insight into social innovation initiatives located in Bilbao, Lisbon and Aveiro. The sfs-scientists Dmitri Domanski and Sabrina Janz attended the site visit.
26.02.2019 – The first of four international theatre trainings by the project JobAct Europe took place from 01/02 – 05/02/2019 in Turin. In 4 days participants from Italy, France, Hungary and Germany were taught methods of social art for social inclusion practically and theoretically. Kerstin Guhlemann and Christine Best from the sfs attended these trainings for scientific support.
18.02.2019 – The SIKE project visited the region of North Rhine-Westphalia and learned about its social innovation ecosystem. In this context, Dmitri Domanski and Sabrina Janz of TU Dortmund University organised an event, where project partners and social innovation actors from the region discussed the challenges of knowledge exchange and multi-sectoral collaboration. The event took place on February 5th at the Social Research Centre (sfs) of TU Dortmund University, one of the project partners.
15.02.2019 – On Wednesday, February 6th, employees of the projects SIKE (Social innovation through knowledge exchange) and PIKSL (Person-centered interaction and communication for more self-determination in life) met for a cross-project workshop in the PIKSL laboratory in Düsseldorf. Dmitri Domanski and Sabrina Janz (SIKE) as well as Jennifer Eckhardt and Christoph Kaletka (PIKSL) represented the Social Research Centre Dortmund (sfs) as scientific partner in both projects. The joint exchange focused on the topics social innovation and co-creation.
19.01.2019 – Dmitri Domanski was invited to Okayama University in Japan to talk about social innovation research in Europe and to share the key findings of the SI-DRIVE project. Altogether, researchers from the areas of social and economic sciences, engineering and natural sciences contributed to the symposium.