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.

Keywords:

• Social innovation
• technical university
• sustainable development goals
• third mission
• innovation ecosystem

Introduction

To ensure global sustainable development, the United Nations (UN) adopted the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) in 2015 to address the coming years’ economic, ecological and social challenges (United Nations 2021). Finding solutions to the various challenges requires enormous efforts from different actors and disciplines. Challenges such as ‘Affordable and clean energy’ (SDG 7), ‘Sustainable cities and communities’ (SDG 11) or ‘Gender equality’ (SDG 5) highlight the need for solutions that not only focus on technology but include social innovations (Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020). The emphasis on social innovation in addressing these challenges has been increasingly discussed in the literature in recent years (Cunha and Benneworth 2020; Kumari et al. 2019; Mulgan 2019; Haskell, Bonnedahl, and Stål 2021; Arocena and Sutz 2021; Krlev 2024). In brief, social innovations are ‘innovations that are social both in their end and their means’ (Mulgan 2019, 10) and often arise in co-creative processes and involve collaboration between industry, civil society, government and academia.

The European Union (EU) has recognised the importance of promoting social innovations to tackle societal problems, and thus, interest in social innovation has increased within the EU in recent years, both in research and policy (Cinar and Benneworth 2020; Potluka 2021). The EU made social innovation and social entrepreneurship relevant topics within different funding programmes (Sabato, Vanhercke, and Verschraegen 2017) and several guidelines and financial support mechanisms were established during the last years (Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020). For example, the European Commission has contributed to research on social innovation by funding research projects (European Commission 2017; Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020) and published the Social Economy Action Plan highlighting social innovation’s role in sustainable and inclusive European developmental (European Commission 2021).

In particular, the role of academia, especially of universities, in social innovation processes is increasingly discussed at the political level and in the scientific literature (Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020; Kumari et al. 2019; Cunha and Benneworth 2020; Benneworth and Cunha 2015; Donati and Wigren-Kristoferson 2023; Göransson, Donati, and Wigren-Kristoferson 2021). Prior research has thoroughly investigated the contribution of the ‘entrepreneurial university’ to innovation and the universities role in innovation ecosystems (Etzkowitz, Schuler Jnr., and Gulbrandsen 2000; Etzkowitz 2013; Göransson 2017; Jacob and Hellström 2000). Besides, different institutions like, e.g. the European Commission, also highlight universities’ role in promoting social innovation (European Commission 2018). For example, the European Commission (2018) states that universities can act as drivers for social change and promote social innovation, supported by the European University Association, which envisions universities to engage in technological and social innovation (European University Association 2021).

Research indicates a lack of systematic support for social innovation and social entrepreneurship within universities (Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020; Cinar 2019; Cinar and Benneworth 2020) and highlights a gap in understanding the role of universities within social innovation ecosystems (Cinar and Benneworth 2020; Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020; García-González and Ramírez-Montoya 2020; Benneworth and Cunha 2015; Kumari et al. 2019; Gustafsson, McKelvey, and Zaring 2023; Morawska-Jancelewicz 2022; Menter 2023). For instance, Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson (2020) emphasise the need for further investigation into how university-based structures can better support social innovation. Moreover, the link between policy instruments and political support in individual countries and promoting social innovation at the university level is still unclear (Monteiro et al. 2021; Gustafsson, McKelvey, and Zaring 2023). As Gustafsson, McKelvey, and Zaring (2023) highlighted, social enterprises could depend on policy instruments and political support. However, it is still unclear how much public policy influences social enterprises and universities’ role in social innovation ecosystems. Thus, cross-country comparisons are important for further research (Gustafsson, McKelvey, and Zaring 2023; Gerli, Chiodo, and Bengo 2021).

Moreover, the special role of technical universities in promoting social innovation has yet to be analysed. Previous work on social innovation at universities does not differentiate by type of university, e.g. technical universities or business schools. Nevertheless, due to the already established support systems for technical innovation, technical universities could theoretically have the best conditions to promote social innovation successfully. These existing support systems and the experience in promoting technical innovations could be a starting point for developing social innovation support measures.

Thus, investigating how universities, particularly technical ones, could support social innovations is essential. This paper assesses how five leading European technical universities deal with social innovation, leading to the research question: To what extent do European technical universities promote social innovation, and how might national policy instruments and political support influence their involvement? The goal is twofold: (1) to provide an overview of the current role of technical universities in social innovation ecosystems, taking into consideration national policy instruments and political support for social innovation, and (2) to show possible ways in which technical universities could contribute to the promotion of social innovation. The results show whether and how social innovation has been addressed and promoted at the selected technical universities. Therefore, different university areas are considered, such as university strategies or the anchoring of social innovation in research and teaching to reveal differences in these particular areas. First, we provide a brief literature overview, focusing on the current discourse about social innovation and social entrepreneurship at universities, followed by the methodology section. This article employs a document analysis of publicly available documents focusing on policy instruments and political support, university strategies, research projects and university courses regarding social innovation. Subsequently, the results section presents the results of the document analysis. We conclude by discussing these results and demonstrating possible ways how universities can contribute to the development of social innovation.

Our study contributes to closing the research gap about social innovation regarding technical universities’ fuzzy role so far. By examining five leading technical universities in five European countries, we identify elements conducive to social innovation through cross-country comparison, as Gerli Chiodo, and Bengo (2021) suggested. Furthermore, we address the need for more research on the influence of country-specific regulations and policies on promoting social innovations at (technical) universities, as emphasised by Monteiro et al. (2021).

Theoretical Background

Social Innovation

Despite a growing number of scientific publications on social innovation, the theoretical conceptualisation of social innovation has not fully evolved. Critical challenges include establishing universally accepted definitions of social innovation and social entrepreneurship (Benneworth and Cunha 2015; Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020; Cinar 2019; Nicholls, Simon, and Gabriel 2015). One often-used definition was introduced by Mulgan (2019), who states that social innovations are ‘innovations that are social both in their end and their means’ (p.10). Moreover, he adds that ‘social innovations can contribute to solving social problems – but always as parts of larger patterns of change, and always with a mutual interdependence of the ‘bees’ and the ‘trees’ (Mulgan 2019). Mulgan’s (2019) definition highlights a collaboration between creative entrepreneurs (bees) and well-resourced institutions (trees). Creating societal impact in co-creative processes and the necessity of social innovation to meet a social need or solve a societal problem is also included in Benneworth and Cunha (2015) definition of social innovation. The authors specify that ‘a social innovation is a socially innovative practice that delivers socially just outcomes by developing novel solutions in border spanning learning communities thereby creating social value by promoting community development, hence forming wider collaborative networks, and challenging existing social institutions through this collaborative action’ (p. 512). Besides, the literature discusses three levels of social innovation (incremental, institutional and disruptive) and four dimensions (individual, organisation, network and system). For a detailed discussion of definitions, see for example A. Phillips, Luo, and Wendland-Liu (2024) and Nicholls, Simon, and Gabriel (2015).

Closely interrelated to social innovation is the concept of social entrepreneurship, which, according to Phillips et al. (2015), have in common that in both cases, the goal is to find a way to solve a problem in order to meet a social need (W. Phillips et al. 2015). However, note that social innovations and social entrepreneurship are not synonyms (Audretsch, Eichler, and Schwarz 2022; Huybrechts and Nicholls 2012) and that social innovations are also developed by others than social entrepreneurs. Social innovators often operate within social innovation ecosystems (Audretsch, Eichler, and Schwarz 2022; Gerli, Calderini, and Chiodo 2022). Domanski, Howaldt, and Kaletka (2020) argue that social innovation ecosystems involve facilitating organisations and are constructed as a quadruple helix, i.e. involve industry, academia, government and society. According to the OECD (2021), ‘a social innovation ecosystem is a set of actions designed to promote the development, and growth of social innovations, partly through improving interactions among actors’ (p. 8). Consequently, this article argues that social innovation ecosystems involve different actors – including universities – aiming to promote social innovations. For the sake of completeness, social enterprises are positioned between non-profit organisations aiming for social goals and for-profits prioritising profit, defining them as hybrid organisations that integrate social and economic purpose (Calderini, Fia, and Gerli 2023; Dohrmann, Raith, and Siebold 2015).

Previous research on social innovation, including case studies, frameworks and qualitative analyses (Tan Luc et al. 2020), shows that there is still a difficulty in comparing social and other types of innovation due to the absence of a universally accepted definition of social innovation (Repo and Matschoss 2019; Cajaiba-Santana 2014; Pel et al. 2020). Beckman et al. (2023) underscore that social innovation is explored by various research fields, with a current dominance in management, public policy and planning studies. Notably, there is a gap in the literature linking the innovation ecosystem and social innovation (Franco-Leal et al. 2020). In addition, a gap exists in understanding the role of the innovation ecosystem in facilitating social innovation (Terstriep, Rehfeld, and Kleverbeck 2020), in exploring the process of social innovations, and in identifying effective methods for measuring their impact (Cunha and Benneworth 2020; Nicholls, Simon, and Gabriel 2015). Research emphasises the scarcity of research focusing on social innovators’ needs, characteristics and potential support systems, particularly in comparison to profit-driven entrepreneurs (Audretsch, Eichler, and Schwarz 2022). Additionally, there is a lack of clarity concerning the connection between studies focused on innovation in general and those specifically addressing social innovation (Calderini, Fia, and Gerli 2023; van der Have and Rubalcaba 2016). In particular, more research is needed on universities’ role in social innovation processes which will be discussed in the next chapter (Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020; Benneworth and Cunha 2015; Cinar and Benneworth 2020; Cinar 2019; Cunha and Benneworth 2020; Arocena and Sutz 2021; Donati and Wigren-Kristoferson 2023; Göransson, Donati, and Wigren-Kristoferson 2021; Mdleleni 2022).

Social Innovation at Universities

Research highlights universities role as a key actor in social innovation, e.g. through teaching and research (Cunha and Benneworth 2020; Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020; Donati and Wigren-Kristoferson 2023; Mdleleni 2022; Tjörnbo and McGowan 2022) and by supporting socially innovative spin-offs (Franco-Leal et al. 2020), which is strongly related to universities’ third mission. Next to research and teaching as universities’ core missions, the third mission describes the need for universities to focus on a third task: broader societal engagement, which is often understood as knowledge and technology transfer in the sense of ‘the entrepreneurial university’ (Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020; Donati and Wigren-Kristoferson 2023). In general, universities’ involvement and active support for social innovations are still small compared to technical innovations. For example, Howaldt et al. (2016) show that in a total of more than 1000 social innovations worldwide, universities played a role in only 15%, mainly not as leaders but as partners (Howaldt et al. 2016) which is in contrast to universities’ impact in other types of innovation. According to Bonardo, Paleari, and Vismara (2010), university spin-offs represent a high proportion of all start-ups. The transfer between universities and industry can have different outputs, for example, patents, spin-offs, courses, joint publications, and supervision of students (Grimaldi et al. 2011; Schartinger et al. 2002; Bonardo, Paleari, and Vismara 2010). Similarly, universities can also use different ways to contribute to social innovation: through (1) knowledge, (2) material resources or (3) know-how/know-who (Benneworth and Cunha 2015; Carayannis and Morawska-Jancelewicz 2022). Besides, Gustafsson, McKelvey, and Zaring (2023) underscore two approaches by which universities facilitate social innovation – (1) via engaged students and researchers who, for instance, generate output from research projects, i.e. knowledge, and by (2) offering resources and support for commercialising social innovation, i.e. material resources and know-how/know-who. In addition, studies emphasise the importance of aligning universities’ activities in promoting social innovation with the universities’ strategies (Morawska-Jancelewicz 2022; Benneworth and Cunha 2015). Thus, a central role for the topic within university structures is seen as necessary (Benneworth and Cunha 2015). Furthermore, the student’s perspective on different societal challenges could also be broadened by taking social innovations into account in education (Arocena, Göransson, and Sutz 2019; Arocena and Sutz 2021), and scholars highlight that social innovation research should take place on university campuses (Göransson 2017).

In brief, studies show that universities have not yet systematically promoted social innovation and social entrepreneurship (Cinar and Benneworth 2020; Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020; Cinar 2019). Prior research has listed different reasons for this non-engagement of universities regarding social innovation (see Figure 1). First, the lack of research on the role of universities in social innovation ecosystems could be a reason for universities’ non-involvement (Cinar and Benneworth 2020; Cinar 2019; Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020). In this spirit, Tjörnbo and McGowan (2022) stress the need for universities to support ideas and applied research even if they are not part of universities’ mainstream activities and focus. In addition, Donati and Wigren-Kristoferson (2023) state that universities do not consider social innovation a legitimate activity due to missing funding and incentives. Missing indicators for evaluating non-technological innovations could also explain why universities do not systematically engage in social innovation (Cunha and Benneworth 2020). Metrics used for technical innovations like patents, value added, or licence fees cannot be used to evaluate social innovation as they often produce intangible outputs (Cunha and Benneworth 2020; Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020; Jacobi and Chiappero-Martinetti 2017). Studies highlight a lack of research in measuring universities’ impact on social innovation, i.e. a framework for measuring universities’ impact on social innovation is needed (Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020; Tjörnbo and McGowan 2022; Belcher et al. 2022). Fewer direct financial rewards for social innovations can also lower universities’ motivation to engage in social innovation processes (Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020). This finding is supported by Cinar (2019), who states that unlike technical innovation, where economic returns justify efforts, social innovations cannot guarantee direct returns, and measuring success is also more difficult (Cinar 2019). Besides, the social contribution of universities is not as strongly considered, and, e.g. university rankings have so far failed to capture this component of universities (Cinar 2019). According to Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson (2020), the debate on social innovation at universities often focuses on the third mission, with less consideration often given to the other core areas: teaching and research. Lastly, Cinar and Benneworth (2020) highlight the universities’ current focus on technical innovations. The study affirms low support for social innovations at universities, e.g. through financial or spatial resources. In summary, several studies agree that universities do not systematically engage in social innovation processes because of the dominance of technical innovations in the university system (Cinar 2019; Cinar and Benneworth 2020; Morawska-Jancelewicz 2022; Göransson 2017). For example, Monteiro et al. (2021) argue that universities are not systematically engaged in social innovation due to the lack of knowledge of social innovation (Monteiro et al. 2021), in contrast to technical innovation.

Figure 1. Illustration of the reasons for universities’ non-involvement in social innovation processes.

Social Innovation at Technical Universities – in Need for Technical Universities to Act as Change-Makers

The literature on technology transfer between academia and industry shows that universities¹ have developed the infrastructure and mechanisms to support innovation (Popp Berman 2012). Most universities established widespread technology transfer practices to support innovation activities (Donati and Wigren-Kristoferson 2023; Grimaldi et al. 2011). As a result of universities’ transfer activities, today’s impact of universities as actors in innovation systems can be seen, for example, in the number of university spin-offs. According to Bonardo, Paleari, and Vismara (2010), university spin-offs represent a high proportion of all start-ups. The transfer between universities and industry can have different outputs, for example, patents, spin-offs, courses, joint publications and supervision of students (Grimaldi et al. 2011; Schartinger et al. 2002; Bonardo, Paleari, and Vismara 2010). Benneworth and Cunha (2015) argue that the infrastructure, such as technology transfer offices, contributed to institutionalising universities’ input regarding technical innovation. Similarly, Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson (2020) state that various technology transfer offices have been established, while the process and organisation of social innovation are still vague. By focusing on technical innovations, innovations in other non-commercial areas are overlooked but can have social added value (Rhoades 2009) and thus contribute to societal development.

In Europe, universities are often distinguished between their foci such as technical universities, business schools or medical schools (Lepori, Baschung, and Probst 2010). Following Larsen et al. (2020), this article defines technical universities, also known as technological or polytechnic universities, as ‘a HEI [higher education institution] whose institutional identity is linked to technically oriented research and advanced education as a technical university’ (Larsen, Geschwind, and Broström 2020, 3). Thus, in research and teaching, technical universities are often focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Most students are enrolled in STEM subjects like mechanical engineering.

Particularly at technical universities, the focus on technical innovations is already given by the founding idea, and they often have well-established innovation structures. Different rankings show that technical universities are innovative and successful in promoting technical innovations. According to a recent Reuter’s ranking, most of the largest European universities of science and technology belong to the top 100 most innovative universities (Reuters 2019). Besides, graduate entrepreneurship is also widespread among science and engineering students and not only among those graduates who have a specific entrepreneurship education (Åstebro, Bazzazian, and Braguinsky 2012; Colombo and Piva 2020). The relationship between social and technical innovation is closely intertwined, where technology can be an aspect of social innovation (Carl 2020). However, social innovations have a broader scope, targeting social impact by meeting social needs and institutional or organisational change, and are initiated by a diverse group of actors (Carl 2020; Mdleleni 2022). In the context of current societal challenges and technological developments, Calderini et al. (2024) highlight the need to understand the relationship between technological development, social entrepreneurship, social innovation and so-called social-tech entrepreneurship. According to Gerli, Calderini, and Chiodo (2022), ‘social-tech entrepreneurship exploits technological innovations to create social value by meeting the needs of clients and beneficiaries and performing economically sustainable activities’ (p. 1963). In addition, Scillitoe, Poonamallee, and Joy (2018) define social-tech innovation as ‘novel solutions that involve development or adoption of technological innovations to address social and/or environmental problems with a view towards creating benefit for the larger whole than just to the owners or investors’ (p. 6). In this spirit, Calderini et al. (2024) call for a change in universities’ technology transfer policies in favour of social-tech entrepreneurship.

The literature review shows that previous studies on social innovation at universities refer to universities in general and do not distinguish between different types of universities, e.g. technical or business schools. However, technical universities could play an important role in promoting social innovation, especially social-tech innovation, e.g. through well-established support mechanisms for technical innovation and by educating STEM students. In line with Menter (2023), we argue that technical universities need to focus not only on technical innovations but also on social ones. However, there is little to no research on technical universities’ role in social innovation processes. Following, the existing research gap on social innovation, particularly at technical universities, highlights the need for an overview of the current state. Furthermore, differences in university systems may, in turn, result in a different environment for social innovation (Monteiro et al. 2021). Considering that government legislation impacts technology transfer from universities (Cunningham et al. 2019), we assume that national policy instruments and political support could also impact the promotion of social innovation by universities. Following and addressing the need for a cross-country comparison of social innovation (Gerli, Chiodo, and Bengo 2021), an overview is needed that compares the situation of different technical universities in different countries. Thus, this study compares the embedding of social innovation at five technical universities in five European countries on a macro-, meso- and micro-level. In doing so, we extend the state of the art of research on the role of social innovation at technical universities by evaluating the embedding of social innovation in research, teaching, and strategy. Furthermore, the results discuss possible connections between social innovation policies in European countries and the embedding at technical universities.

Methodology

The literature review shows a need to better understand the role of technical universities in social innovation processes to derive possible policy and university-level actions. This article aims to provide an overview of the implementation of social innovations at five European technical universities using document analysis. Assuming that differences in policy instruments and political support could influence technical universities’ engagement in social innovation, our research question reads: To what extent do European technical universities promote social innovation, and how might national policy instruments and political support influence their involvement? As a qualitative research method, document analysis aims to gain and build empirical knowledge (Bowen 2009). In the first step of the document analysis, documents were searched, selected, evaluated and synthesised (Bowen 2009) (see section Research Design). Document analysis was used as it applies to case studies and allows a systematic review of existing data (Bowen 2009) to get an overview of the current situation of social innovation at technical universities. We developed a three-step research framework, considering the macro-, meso- and micro-level. Building on previous studies that examine macro-, meso- and micro-perspectives for technical innovation (for more information see for example (Cunningham and O’Reilly 2018)), we analysed policy instruments for social innovation in five European countries on the macro-level. The meso-level focuses on supporting institutions, in our case technical universities, while micro-perspectives can focus on different topics (Cunningham and O’Reilly 2018); we focus on teaching and research on social innovation at technical universities. The IDEA League universities serve as the object of study for this purpose. The IDEA League is a strategic alliance of five leading European technical universities: RWTH Aachen University, Chalmers University of Technology, TU Delft, Politecnico di Milano and ETH Zurich. The IDEA League universities are characterised by being among the leading technical universities in Europe, and within the respective countries, they belong to the largest universities in terms of students and staff. Furthermore, the five technical universities collaborate in, among other things, joint summer schools, exchange programmes, working groups and developing common strategies (IDEA League n.d.). The IDEA League universities have over 135,000 students (IDEA League n.d.). Due to the large number of students, the distribution across five different European countries, and the technical focus in research, teaching and innovation, as well as their common understanding on societal and grand challenges they are taken as examples of the state of social innovation at European technical universities, and we evaluate these five technical universities concerning our research aim.

Research Design

Within the research design, it is assumed that differences in the individual higher education systems could lead to differences in promoting and implementing social innovation (Monteiro et al. 2021), and country-specific regulations, traditions and cultures in the innovation system could explain these differences. In line with Grimaldi et al. (2011), we argue that individual university strategies can also be traced to the role of the university in a country and the society. The strategies and their implementation can be influenced, for example, by subject orientation, culture or politics. To provide a comprehensive overview of the situation at technical universities in the field of social innovation, we developed a three-step research framework shown in Figure 2. Based on this, documents were collected in the first step of our document analysis. The data collected for this analysis included documents on policy instruments and political support for social innovation in the five IDEA League universities’ home countries (Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands and Sweden) on macro-level. Besides, we examine the university strategies, published by the IDEA League universities since 2018 on a meso-level (see Figure 2). Third, we assess how social innovation is already implemented in research and teaching on a micro-level using an open-access list of all EU projects under Horizon 2020 and the university course catalogues.

Figure 2. Descriptive illustration of the three steps research framework.

After getting an overview of the existing documents, the documents were analysed in detail, according to the developed data set, organising them into categories and case examples suggested by Bowen (2009). A detailed explanation of the analysis on macro-, meso- and micro-level is described in the following. Lastly, all documents were read and analysed again to validate the findings and identify possible missing information.

Macro-Level

Based on the increasing relevance of social innovation at the European level and following our research aim, policy papers are analysed first. To better understand policy differences in the five IDEA League universities’ home countries, we investigated national and European policy documents regarding social innovation and social entrepreneurship by focusing on publications by the EU. First, we identified different sources covering policy instruments on social innovation and social entrepreneurship in the five countries. We mainly considered the European Commission’s ‘Social enterprises and their ecosystems’ reports (Borzaga et al. 2020; Borzaga 2020; Bosma 2019; Gawell 2019; von Ravensburg, Krlev, and Mildenberger 2018; Andruszkiewicz et al. 2014) in this context, intending to assess differences and commonalities between the five countries. We also evaluated government reports from individual countries and reports from social entrepreneurship networks, available for Germany (Social Entrepreneurship Netzwerk Deutschland [SEND]) and Switzerland (Social Entrepreneurship Netzwerk Schweiz [SENS]) and the European Social Enterprise Monitor (ESEM). Based on the available documents and our research aim to consider differences in the countries with regard to policy instruments and political support, we identified three categories: (1) legislation, (2) financial resources and (3) recognition, drivers and culture. Subsequently, we analysed the available documents according to the three categories. We aimed to determine whether the countries have established a distinct legal form for social enterprises within the first point, legislation. Regarding financial resources, we analysed the documents to determine how social enterprises have access to financial resources. In the last point, we gathered information about the political and societal recognition of social innovation and social entrepreneurship.

Meso-Level

On the meso-level, we zoom in on the promotion of social innovation at technical universities and analyse the university strategies of the IDEA League universities. Strategy papers provide goals and visions universities want to achieve in the coming years. Therefore, some of the proposed points are not currently implemented but are part of a university-wide strategy and can thus indicate a university’s focus for the coming years. As a first step, we identified current strategy papers of the IDEA League universities. For this purpose, we rely on strategic plans that are freely available on the internet. We used the ‘TU Delft Strategic Framework 2018-2024’, the ‘Politecnico di Milano Strategic Plan 2020-2022’ and ‘Strategic Plan 2023-2025’, the ‘ETH Zurich Strategy Development Plan 2021-2024’ and the ‘Chalmers vision and strategies 2016-2022’. The currently available strategy document of RWTH Aachen University was adopted in 2009 and is valid until 2020. Hence, the analysis refers to the current proposal in the excellence strategy ‘The Integrated Interdisciplinary University of Science and Technology’. As a first analysis shows that the two keywords social innovation and social entrepreneurship are rarely addressed in the strategy papers, we also identified related keywords that could indicate the implementation of social innovation. Consequently, we identified the following relevant keywords for our analysis: (1) societal challenges and grand challenges, (2) sustainability and the SDGs, (3) social responsibility and research with and for society and (4) social innovation and social entrepreneurship. We analysed the strategy papers on how universities address societal and grand challenges and consider the SDGs and sustainability as central issues. The reason is that social innovation is seen as a possible way to solve current challenges (Benneworth and Cunha 2015; Arocena and Sutz 2021; Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020). In addition, social responsibility and research with and for society are two relevant topics since both are associated with the concept of social innovation and are thus used as keywords for our document analysis.

Micro-Level

Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson (2020) emphasise a current debate about integrating social innovation in university teaching. By doing so, universities can empower students to solve societal problems as employees and social entrepreneurs (Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020). Therefore, this study identifies the integration of social innovation topics into research and teaching on a micro-level. As already described, the EU is considered a major supporter of social innovation e.g. in research. To analyse how far technical universities consider social innovation in research, we used the Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS) of the European Commission and, more specifically, an open-access list of all EU projects under Horizon 2020, last updated in January, 2024. This list shows the coordinators and partners of Horizon 2020 and the projects’ titles and objectives. We used this list to compare all five universities, since, Switzerland, as a non-EU country, participated in Horizon 2020. First, we analysed all Horizon 2020 project titles and objectives for the relevant keywords, namely social innovation and social entrepreneurship. In the next step, we analysed all projects containing one of the keywords according to the project’s coordinators and participants. This enabled us to find out on how many projects on social innovation or social entrepreneurship an IDEA League university is involved in as a coordinator or participant. Due to the scope and lack of documents in English, no national funding schemes were analysed. Thus, the analysis of the projects can give an overview of possible research activities on social innovation and social entrepreneurship but does not aim to give a holistic analysis. To sum up, at the end of the analysis, we contained a list of all projects that met two requirements: (1) they deal with social innovation or social entrepreneurship, and (2) one of the five IDEA League universities is involved as coordinator or participant.

Moreover, we investigated the university course catalogues to identify social innovation and social entrepreneurship courses at each IDEA League university. We checked the universities’ course catalogues for courses offered between the winter semester of 2019 and the winter semester of 2023. In the first step, we reviewed all course titles according to the keywords social innovation and social entrepreneurship. In the second step, we analysed the course descriptions of all courses, including innovation or entrepreneurship in their titles. For this purpose, we compiled a list of all courses at the IDEA League universities in which the terms innovation and entrepreneurship appeared in the title and then analysed the course descriptions for the two relevant keywords: social innovation and social entrepreneurship.

To summarise, Table 1 shows all data used for the document analysis, including the main content.

Table 1. Summary of used data for the document analysis and its main content.

	Used data	Main content
Macro: Politics	Social Enterprises and their Ecosystems reports: Comparative synthesis report (2020) and country reports from Germany (2018), Italy (2020), Sweden (2019), the Netherlands (2019), Switzerland (2014)	Visibility and recognition Access to resources Size and legal types Trends, opportunities and challenges
	Reports from social entrepreneurship networks: SEND 3. Deutscher Social Entrepreneurship Monitor, SENS Monitor Soziales Unternehmertum Schweiz 2020, European Social Enterprise Monitor (ESEM)	Political recognition Markets and financing Barriers and enablers
Meso: Strategies	Strategy Papers of IDEA League Universities: The Integrated Interdisciplinary University of Science and Technology (RWTH), Politecnico di Milano Strategic Plan 2020–2022 and 2023–2025, Chalmers Vision and Strategies 2016–2022, TU Delft Strategic Framework 2018–2024, ETH Zürich Strategy Development Plan 2021–2024	Vision Mission Strategic core areas
Micro: Research and Teaching	CORDIS: Open access list of H2020 projects of IDEA League Universities (updated in 2024)	Coordinators and partners Keywords Objectives
	Course Catalogues: RWTHonline, Manifesti degli Studi Polimi, Chalmers Student Portal, Study Guide TU Delft, Course Catalogue ETH Zürich	Course titles Course descriptions

Results

Our study indicates that European technical universities do not prioritise social innovation and entrepreneurship as key strategic areas. Nevertheless, the results show that technical universities are aware of their responsibility in solving societal challenges. Furthermore, the cross-country analysis of policy instruments and political support mechanisms shows that countries differ in supporting social innovation and social entrepreneurship. Figure 3 summarises the key findings of the research on a macro-, meso- and micro-level.

Figure 3. Key findings of the document analysis on macro-, meso- and micro-level.

Macro-Level: Social Innovation in Europe

Social innovation is addressed in different funding programmes and reports at the European level. For example, in 2010, the Bureau of European Policy Advisers published a report highlighting the importance of social innovation for European development (Bureau of European Policy Advisers 2010). Similarly, the Europe 2020 strategy points to social innovation as a way to achieve the strategy’s goals. Sabato et al. (2017) state that within Europe 2020, social innovation has been almost on the same level as technical innovation. This status is particularly the case within the Innovation Europe flagship initiative, the European Structural and Investment Funds, the seventh Framework Programme (FP7) and Horizon 2020 (FP8) (Sabato, Vanhercke, and Verschraegen 2017). Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson (2020) highlight that the EU’s seventh and eighth research framework programmes aim to refocus research on societal challenges and provide countries and organisations (including universities) with the resources to do so.

Thus, on a macro-level, we assessed policy instruments and political support for social innovation and social entrepreneurship in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden by focusing on (1) legislation, (2) financial resources and (3) recognition, driver and culture.

Legislation

Analysing the European Commission’s reports and further national documents showed that the five countries have in common that most do not have a distinct legal form for social enterprises. However, social entrepreneurship networks, for example, in Germany or Switzerland, emphasise the importance of an independent legal form (SENS Suisse 2020; Hoffmann, Scharpe, and Wunsch 2021). Of the five countries considered, only Italy has adopted a social enterprise status with corresponding laws: the social cooperatives (Borzaga et al. 2020). However, next to ‘social cooperatives’, Italy recognises different entrepreneurial forms, such as social innovative start-ups (Gerli, Chiodo, and Bengo 2021). In addition, Italy, in contrast to the other countries, has developed criteria for social enterprises (Borzaga 2020). Of those countries that do not have a distinct legal form, social enterprises use various legal forms (Dupain et al. 2021). In Germany, for example, social enterprises can use four different legal forms, but no distinct legal form exists only for social enterprises. Similar applies to the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden (Borzaga et al. 2020).

Financial Resources

In contrast to traditional companies, access to financial resources is more complex for social enterprises, e.g., due to limited or no profit distribution to investors (Borzaga et al. 2020). An European study showed that over 72% of social enterprises have had secure financial planning for less than one year. The lack of financial options is named as one of the most significant barriers to the success of social enterprises (Dupain et al. 2021). In general, the ESEM shows that, the European Social Fund, Erasmus +, Horizon 2020 and Interreg Europe were the most popular financing options for social enterprises in Europe. Besides, the European Commission’s findings show significant disparities in funding opportunities for social enterprises within different countries. For example, while several support measures for starting social enterprises exist in the Netherlands, support in Sweden is low, and social enterprises have no specific fiscal benefits, in contrast to e.g. Italy. Social enterprises in Switzerland are often financed by their savings in the early years (SENS Suisse 2020). Moreover, there are more opportunities for financing a social entrepreneurial start-up from private stakeholders or foundations than from public authorities in Germany. In addition, the financing of German social enterprises, for example, also depends on the legal form, which results in a mix of resources for financing depending on the legal form (Borzaga et al. 2020). In Germany, charities with sustainable business models can afford reasonable financing from banks and associations. In contrast, newer types of social enterprises with more profit-oriented business models have difficulties with these same banks and associations (Borzaga et al. 2020). Besides, Italy established a ‘tax assignation system’ mechanism, which allows taxpayers to assign a percentage of their taxes to a non-profit organisation (including social enterprises) of their choice (Borzaga et al. 2020). In addition, social entrepreneurial start-ups could be financed by selling their products (Borzaga et al. 2020). However, this possibility is more difficult for social enterprises primarily concerned with health and education. For example, they primarily depend on public subsidies or contracts with municipalities or other organisations. In summary, the European Commission’s study concludes that there is a link between access to finance and overall recognition, diffusion, and visibility in a country. The higher the recognition or visibility, the easier it is to obtain funding (Borzaga et al. 2020). Moreover, the Commission’s report states that the support mechanisms for the start-up phase are generally better than for the growth phase (Borzaga et al. 2020), which could hinder the long-term growth of social enterprises.

Recognition, Drivers and Culture

The five European countries differ in accepting social enterprises and recognition in politics. In general, the extent to which social enterprises are accepted in different countries depends, among other things, on the relevance, level of development and the existence of similar concepts (Borzaga et al. 2020). For example, political recognition can be seen in ministerial units or departments focusing on social entrepreneurship at the national or regional level. In addition, specific policy strategies for supporting social innovation and social entrepreneurship indicate political recognition (Borzaga et al. 2020). Regarding the five IDEA League countries, the Netherlands established specific structures on the regional level, and Sweden adopted a ‘Strategy for Social Enterprise and Social Innovation’ in 2018. However, the five IDEA League countries differ in political recognition on a national level through specific legislation for social enterprises. The Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden have not introduced specific legislation yet (SENS Suisse 2020; Borzaga et al. 2020). In contrast, Italy has a well-established social entrepreneurship infrastructure (Borzaga 2020; Gerli, Chiodo, and Bengo 2021) and in Germany, the first strategy for social innovation was published by the federal government in 2023 (BMWK and BMBF 2023). A survey in Switzerland shows that the lobby in politics is still small here (SENS Suisse 2020). Finally there is no legal framework for social enterprises in the Netherlands as the Dutch government decided to support social entrepreneurship as an approach, not as a specific type of organisation (Borzaga et al. 2020). Moreover, the recognition of social enterprises is limited to a certain extent by traditional welfare institutions that cover most of the population’s needs in Germany. In the Netherlands, on the other hand, there is a tradition that all companies have a social responsibility, which challenges the concept of a social enterprise (Borzaga et al. 2020). In contrast to the other four IDEA League countries, the acceptance and recognition of social enterprises are high in Italy as they are recognised by the public, policymakers and researchers (Borzaga et al. 2020).

In general, it is difficult to calculate the number of social enterprises in a country due to the lack of data availability. The European Commission’s ‘Social Enterprises and Their Ecosystems’ report shows that Italy has the largest number of social enterprises per million inhabitants (1,694 social enterprises per million inhabitants), followed by Germany with 936, the Netherlands with 290–350 and Sweden with 296. Switzerland was not included here (Borzaga et al. 2020). However, according to a 2014 report, there are 406 social enterprises per million inhabitants in Switzerland (European Commission 2015).

The drivers of social enterprises differed in the five countries, mainly depending on the welfare system. While there is a poor supply of welfare services by public providers in Italy, social services in Sweden were extensively publicly supplied. For example, social enterprises in Sweden emerged by privatising social services and bottom-up dynamics. In Germany and the Netherlands, the main drivers are bottom-up dynamics to meet other needs that are not yet covered by the country’s extensive public and non-profit welfare structure (Borzaga et al. 2020).

Meso-Level

Societal and Grand Challenges

The analysis of the universities’ strategy papers shows that all five technical universities highlight their role in finding solutions for grand, global or societal challenges. Furthermore, RWTH Aachen University, TU Delft and Politecnico di Milano address their contribution to finding solutions to current challenges in their vision. For example, the analysis of the visions indicates that ‘RWTH Aachen University […] develops solutions that impact today’s and future challenges.’ (RWTH Aachen University 2019, 1). Likewise, ‘Delft University of Technology contributes to solving global challenges […]’ (TU Delft 2018, 12). Besides, ETH Zurich addresses ‘[…] the important questions of our time […]’ (ETH Zurich 2021, 10) in their mission. Similarly, Chalmers University of Technology’s mission is to produce and spread solutions. To conclude, global challenges are addressed in all university strategies, either in their mission or vision statements.

Sustainability and the SDGs

Sustainability and the SDGs are considered in the strategy papers of all universities. Especially, Chalmers University of Technology’s vision is: ‘Chalmers – for a sustainable society’ (Chalmers University of Technology 2016, 8). Moreover, coherent topics such as preserving natural resources or economic challenges are regarded in ETH Zurich’s mission or Politecnico di Milano’s vision statement.

Social Responsibility and Research with and for Society

The results show that the five technical universities recognise their role in contributing to responsible development. RWTH Aachen University and TU Delft, in particular, highlight the responsibility of universities for society and the future in their strategies. For example, RWTH Aachen University states that Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is one of its guiding principles. All five strategy papers address conducting research with societal relevance, for and with society, and collaborating with societal stakeholders. (Social) responsibility is most prominently addressed in TU Delft’s vision which highlights the education of socially responsible engineers (TU Delft 2018). Besides, Politecnico di Milano addresses responsibility in its mission statement, aiming to be a ‘European Leading University, capable of guiding research and scientific and technological innovation to improve human life in a sustainable and responsible way’ (Politecnico di Milano 2020, 4).

Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship

Social is partially addressed in the strategies. Often the term is not explicitly mentioned but paraphrased. For example, RWTH Aachen University states that their profile areas aim to transfer results into ‘societally relevant innovations’ (RWTH Aachen University 2019, 3). ETH Zurich also mentions the Social Innovation Lab as a specific project in its strategy. According to its strategy paper 2020–2022, Politecnico di Milano states to establish a social impact budget, and Chalmers University of Technology’s education should enable students to create social and technical solutions. Besides, Politecnico di Milano’s vision highlights an interaction ‘[…] with social sciences and humanities, so that the innovation brought by technical disciplines can be managed effectively, inclusively and sustainably, in compliance with both individual and local needs (p. 12)’. In the Strategic Plan 2023–2025, Politecnico di Milano addresses social innovation as the university ‘[…] wants to design and manage these initiatives even more broadly and across the board: from environmental sustainability and climate change mitigation to social innovation […]’ (Politecnico di Milano 2023, 32). TU Delft writes in the strategic goals that they want to stimulate research ‘[…] that aims at responsible, societal innovation […]’ (TU Delft 2018, 27). In addition, TU Delft aims to improve collaboration between the university and its surrounding community to foster, among other things, social innovation as a driver for building a sustainable and inclusive society.

Micro-Level

Social innovation was one topic addressed during Horizon 2020. Of all Horizon 2020 projects, a total of 148 projects were identified that included one of the two keywords (social innovation or social entrepreneurship) in their title or objective. Of these 148 projects, a total of 11 projects involved an IDEA League university. TU Delft was involved in 2 projects as a participant (COMRADES and PRO-Ethics), and Politecnico di Milano was a participant in 7 projects and coordinator of 2 (SISCODE and CREA) projects related to social innovation and social entrepreneurship.

Similar results emerge from the analysis of the courses at the universities. In general, all universities offer courses on innovation and entrepreneurship. For example, TU Delft and RWTH Aachen University offer more than 30 courses each semester that deal with one of the two topics. The analysis of course titles and course descriptions shows that the five technical universities offer few courses that explicitly address social innovation and social entrepreneurship. Between 2019 and 2023, TU Delft, Chalmers University of Technology and Politecnico di Milano offered at least one course every year that addressed social innovation or social entrepreneurship either in the title or in the course description. In contrast, the results show that RWTH Aachen University and ETH Zurich only occasionally offer courses. For example, in the winter semester of 2020, RWTH Aachen University offered the module ‘Designing a social innovation process for sustainable innovation management’ and ETH Zurich offered courses in 2019 and 2023 including social entrepreneurship in its titles.

To sum up, regarding Horizon 2020 projects, we identified that Politecnico di Milano was involved in most projects dealing with social innovation or social entrepreneurship out of the five universities considered. Besides, the course catalogues’ analysis shows that three IDEA League universities offer regular courses on social innovation and social entrepreneurship.

Discussion

This article examines how social innovation is embedded at five European technical universities and how national policy instruments and political support in the respective five European countries might influence the embedding of social innovation and social entrepreneurship at technical universities. The results highlight that social innovation is frequently discussed at the EU level and that political support and other policy instruments, like government legislation for social innovation differ between European countries. We show that the researched technical universities have not established a systematic approach to promote social innovation. Social innovation and social entrepreneurship are only partially considered in university strategies and currently play a minor role at the micro-level, i.e. teaching and research.

The results on social innovation at technical universities are in line with previous research on social innovation at universities (Cinar and Benneworth 2020; Cinar 2019; Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020; Göransson 2017; Menter 2023; Tjörnbo and McGowan 2022). Our analysis of IDEA League universities shows that social innovation and social entrepreneurship are not strategic core tasks at the five technical universities, which instead focus more on technical innovation. Additionally, our findings could support the importance of political support and policy mechanisms for social innovation, as highlighted by Franco-Leal et al. (2020). Notably, Italy, and specifically Politecnico di Milano, stands out for integrating social innovation into its strategy, research, and teaching compared to other IDEA League universities. This could suggest that increased attention to social innovation at the macro-level (political level) could enhance its embedding at technical universities, a topic deserving further research. Current political trends, such as those in Germany aiming to prioritise social innovation (SPD, BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN, and FDP 2021) indicate that social innovation could also gain importance at the national level in the next few years.

At the university level, our results highlight that the five technical universities recognise the importance of current challenges by explicitly addressing the issues in their strategy papers. In contrast to a study conducted by Morawska-Jancelewicz (2022), where 61% of all universities incorporated social innovation into their strategies and 57% of the technical universities considered, social innovation is only explicitly addressed by Politecnico di Milano’s vision out of the five IDEA League universities. To promote social innovation in research and teaching at technical universities, technical universities need to incorporate it into their core strategies, aligning with Benneworth and Cunha (2015)’s and Morawska-Jancelewicz (2022) recommendations for comprehensive social innovation strategies.

Even though the results by Morawska-Jancelewicz (2022) indicate that some universities are already addressing social innovation in their strategies, Monteiro et al. (2021) show that social innovation is still unknown among the university community and that there is a lack of recognition of the relevance of social innovation. It follows that in addition to the inclusion of social innovation in university strategies, it seems important to, as suggested by Benneworth and Cunha (2015), align university strategies and activities in social innovation and to make social innovation more visible, especially at technical universities.

In general, research and teaching are two of the core responsibilities of universities and there is a debate about the need to integrate social innovation in university teaching. Our results may indicate that social innovation and social entrepreneurship are not yet considered in research and teaching at all technical universities. However, doing so, universities can empower students to solve social problems both as employees and social entrepreneurs (Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020) and could broaden students perspectives (Arocena, Göransson, and Sutz 2019) to make social innovation more visible. However, the researched technical universities rarely include social innovation in research and teaching. Given that science and technology students and graduates are very productive in starting high-quality companies (Åstebro, Bazzazian, and Braguinsky 2012) and the importance of social-tech entrepreneurship (Calderini et al. 2024), technical universities need to focus more on social innovation in their research and teaching, preparing students to address global challenges. Including social innovation in teaching does not necessarily require creating new courses; it could involve adapting existing ones, such as those on technical innovation, to cover the relationship between social and technical innovation.

Following the idea of the quadruple helix (Carayannis, Barth, and Campbell 2012), technical universities could collaborate, e.g. with societal actors or social entrepreneurs, as many socially innovative ideas need technical knowledge. Literature on the entrepreneurial university and the triple helix highlights the success of industry-academia-government relationships (Carayannis, Barth, and Campbell 2012; Etzkowitz 2013). In the sense of the quadruple helix, collaboration with other stakeholders offers technical universities the opportunity to promote transfer to business and society and contribute to sustainable development. With their research strength and technology transfer offices, technical universities offer the best opportunities to act as pioneers for social-tech entrepreneurship. Technical universities could promote social innovation by opening business incubators for social enterprises and allow social entrepreneurs to work on and spin off their ideas. Opening the innovation ecosystem to civil society and non-profit organisations creates the possibility of new cross-stakeholder collaborations. A collaboration involving all stakeholders in the sense of the quadruple helix offers new opportunities for research, innovation and teaching (Berg, Wirtz, and Leicht-Scholten 2020). Therefore, our results could provide an impetus for deeper collaboration between technical universities and social innovation actors, thus responding to the European Commission’s call for effective dialogues between stakeholders (Borzaga et al. 2020).

This study addresses the current research lack on the role of technical universities in social innovation ecosystems (Bayuo, Chaminade, and Göransson 2020; Cinar and Benneworth 2020). In particular, the role of technical universities has not yet been studied. However, given the relevance of social-tech entrepreneurship (Gerli, Chiodo, and Bengo 2021; Calderini et al. 2021), and the success of technical universities in supporting innovation, the role of technical universities in social innovation processes could be of great interest to theory and practice in the future. Thus, our results complement current research by providing an overview of the role of five leading European technical universities in social innovation and show that they are not systematically engaged in promoting social innovation and social entrepreneurship. Thus, the results complement the research on social innovations at universities, analysing technical universities’ so far fuzzy role, and the findings contribute to better understanding (university) innovation ecosystems. The results could be seen as a starting point for future research on technical universities need to engage in social innovation.

Responding to Gerli, Chiodo, and Bengo’s (2021) call for cross-country comparison, our study contrasts universities across five European countries. Monteiro et al. (2021) highlight the need for understanding the link between policy instruments and political support and university support for social innovation. Thus, our research addresses a current research gap by providing insights how support measures in individual countries could affect the embedding of social innovation in individual technical universities and indicates that there might be a connection between the different levels. It could follow that if social innovation is considered more on the national level, it could also enhance the implementation on the university level. Thus, theory and practice should be aware of the relation between macro-, meso- and micro-level and studying the possible connection should be subject of future research.

Limitations and Future Research

Based on the lack of research on how technical universities promote social innovation and entrepreneurship, this paper aims to provide an overview of the role of social innovation in technical universities, considering a possible influence of policy instruments and political support on its embedding at technical universities. However, more scientific work is required to better understand (technical) universities’ role in promoting social innovation. Our work is limited by the number of technical universities considered. Even if the IDEA League universities are among their countries’ leading technical universities, they do not represent all technical universities in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland or Europe in general. In addition, all examined universities are mainly located in structurally strong and wealthy countries in west and north Europe. The local i.e. European focus also limits the results and does not apply to other world regions. Following, future research could compare technical universities in Europe with technical universities outside Europe. Especially universities in Latin America have established suitable mechanisms to promote social innovations (Domanski, Howaldt, and Schröder 2017). Therefore, comparing both systems could give further insights into promoting social innovations at European technical universities. However, given the lack of research on social innovation at technical universities and the important role they could play in social innovation, our work shows that social innovations have so far received little attention at technical universities and need to be put more on the agenda.

Besides, a detailed analysis, including primary data generation, was not part of the research objective. Only EU projects in Horizon 2020 were considered for the analysis of research projects. A detailed analysis of national funding programmes for research on social innovations and social enterprises was not considered. Future research could, among other things, examine national funding programmes to draw more precise conclusions about the involvement of technical universities in research on social innovations. Narrowing was also made in the analysis of the teaching courses. For example, only those courses with ‘innovation’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ in the title were examined in more detail. Thus, the results can only provide an overview of the anchoring of social innovation and social entrepreneurship in teaching. In addition, an analysis of the study programmes in which courses related to social innovation and social entrepreneurship are offered could complement the results.

While our results could indicate that macro-level focus could impact micro-level implementation, the analysis does not specify how measures like legal recognition for social enterprises or special research funding for social innovation directly strengthen their integration into technical universities. Due to the limitations of the method and the number of technical universities analysed, it is not possible to make causal assumptions about the relationship between the macro- and micro-levels. The results are intended to provide an overview and may indicate a possible relation. A more detailed investigation of the influence of individual measures at the macro-level on the micro-level could be the subject of future research. In line with previous research, we argue that literature on the impact of (technical) universities in social innovation is needed, which should be the subject of future research. Although our findings suggest that, in the sense of a top-down approach, more awareness at the macro level may lead to more consideration at the micro-level, it may also be that more attention at the micro-level will lead to more consideration of social innovation at the meso- or macro-level, e.g. in strategies. This bottom-up approach could also be a topic for future research.

This article mainly used secondary data why further research in the sense of a mixed-method approach could further complement the results. In line with Bowen (2009), the document analysis could provide a good overview, but the results need to be complemented by generating more data. For example, interviewing students at technical universities about their knowledge and needs regarding social innovation processes on the one hand and university representatives and social entrepreneurs, on the other hand, could help get a holistic view on social innovation and social entrepreneurship at technical universities and should therefore be subject to future research.

Conclusion

Due to the relevance of technologically advanced social entrepreneurship and a research gap on social innovations at technical universities, this article aims to give an overview of social innovations at technical universities. The results presented in this paper indicate that social innovation is not one of the core strategic topics of five technical universities in Europe. Even if they have established support structures for technical innovation, social innovation is only partially addressed in research and teaching and in university strategies. However, differences are evident between the five IDEA League universities and the respective European countries. Our findings could suggest that policy instruments and political support at the national level could influence the consideration of social innovation at the university level. The results imply that technical universities could expand addressing and supporting social innovation and that policy instruments could support implementation at the university level. Thus, the overview shows opportunities for theory and practice and highlights the relevance of looking more closely at social innovation in technical universities.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The RRI Hub is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy.

Notes

1 When universities are referred to, this covers all universities, i.e. both technical universities and, for example, business schools.