Search

This paper aims to advance the state of knowledge related to innovation and philanthropy, by exploring the emerging field of 'participatory grantmaking' (PGM) through the lens of innovation literature. While there are increasing amounts of European and global grantmakers utilizing more participatory methodologies in their grantmaking as a means to move power and increase the collective ability to create social good, there is yet to be any literature specifically exploring the links between these two fields. This conceptual paper, therefore, uses a broad reading of innovation literature to argue that it is most fruitful to consider PGM as innovation within four modalities: as a form of social innovation, process innovation, both radical and incremental innovation, and user-driven innovation. The paper ultimately finds that user-driven innovation (and in particular co-creation / co-production as a strategy to user-driven innovation) may provide the best examples of theory and practical relevance for those utilizing PGM as a means to democratize philanthropy in Europe and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing number of digitally-enabled social innovation initiatives have recently attracted social scholars' interest; and required an attentive consideration the complex entanglements between innovation, social agency and power. This paper contributes to the debate on this juvenile research field by analysing the different conceptualisations, cultural framing, and socio-political entanglements of digitally-enabled social innovation. It adopts a Foucauldian perspective in order to analyse the diverse discourses on socially transformative digital initiatives that work as 'social technologies' and support distinctive power/knowledge nexuses within diverse coalitions of actors. To this end, the paper applies a combination of bibliographic and text-mining methodologies to a large number of academic publications (191 scientific papers) and grey literature (1948 EU-project reports). Retrieved data are elaborated to map the emerging discursive field and identify a genealogy of associated concepts, the distribution of co-incidences and linkages with other concepts, and their ideological layers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the range of expansion/development/growth pathways (or scaling) that might occur with social innovations, with reference to social innovation in rural areas. It explores the lack of a clear conceptualization of both social innovation as a phenomenon and the possible growth and expansion pathways that might arise. Based on a survey of the diverse literature on the expansion/development/growth pathways of social innovations, and illustrated primarily by European examples, the paper develops a typology built around an attempted synthesis of the extant typologies found in published literature. Different theories of rural development are employed to help explain the divergent development pathways that might be anticipated in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe seems deeply divided due to recent crises such as the EURO crisis and the Brexit. Moreover, the EU seems unable to entice its citizens and the construction of a shared European identity seems more distant than ever. Yet, in this paper, I argue that this is testimony to a specific and limited view on European identity construction and focuses solely on the experiences of so-called native Europeans. There are clear indications that a sense of Europeanness is emerging among ethnic minority groups across Europe and that they are becoming key actors in European identity formation. Yet, they are currently rarely acknowledged as such. This paper argues that their identity processes can be understood as strategies by groups that feel excluded from national identities but do (want to) feel at home in 'Europe'. The paper ends with a discussion of the potential opportunities and pitfalls of an 'ambiguous' European identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is generally well-accepted in innovation research that consumer/user adoption of an invention is key to its diffusion. Despite general awareness about the importance of the adopter perspective in innovation diffusion, the majority of the literature on social innovation, hardly addresses the adoption-side of innovation diffusion. Social innovation potential therefore often remains under-utilized. In this paper the result of a review of 468 (predominantly English language) publications on social innovation is provided (based on Web of Science), searching for the adopter perspective in social innovation research. The findings show that, although some hints at the role of adopters, and their environment, can be found in the literature, attention for the willingness and capacities of potential adopters is meager in peer-reviewed publications. Propelled by high policy expectations, at the national as well as European level, scientific interest in social innovation has been booming over the last decade. Without a proper understanding of social innovation diffusion dynamics and adopter willingness and their interactions with existing institutions, expectations may not be fulfilled and specific social innovation policies that have been emerging across Europe may not be able to achieve intended policy goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-production was developed by several European countries to revive their film industries and has become increasingly popular, spreading across the region and beyond. However, this scheme should be carefully examined as to whether it is truly beneficial to the film industry. In response, this paper proposes two new concepts, "corporation-led" and "state-led" co-productions by distinguishing them from the prevailing notion of "(international) co-production." Corporation-led coproduction is to achieve the best outcome through the optimal utilization of production (or creative) factors and business activities. By contrast, state-led co-production has been used to enhance the national image and has been supported by financial incentives. As such, this type of co-production becomes a hindrance for the optimal utilization of production factors. All of these aspects can be found throughout the history of Europe's co-production efforts. In the future, such an instrument should be redesigned in order to promote the film industry more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides empirical evidence on the innovation performance in the European countries in the years of recovery from the global economic and financial crisis by using the CDM model of simultaneous equations. The model directly links R&D engagement and intensity to innovation outcomes measured either as process or as product innovation, and then estimates the effectiveness of the innovative efforts leading to productivity gains. The difference between the drivers of innovation systems and its influence over the productivity growth is analyzed between two different institutional settings in Europe. For that purpose a company-level dataset is used from the 2012 round of the Comunity Innovation Survey. Тhe results indicated that the recent financial crisis had negative influence on the companies' willingness to innovate. The effect of the crisis led to further divergence in the innovation systems of these two institutional settings. Identifying the characteristics of the innovation systems and drivers of innovation during the turmoil shows that policy instruments on EU level should be oriented towards creation of competitive business environment, encouragement to adopt the best management techniques and organizational structures and improvement of well-functioning capital, product and labor markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the initiation of the Erasmus programme in 1987, intra-European student exchanges in higher education are expected to promote a sense of European identity and citizenship among European exchange students. Panel studies grasping students' identification before and after participating in an exchange programme, however, remain remarkably scarce today. Moreover, the few existing studies report conflicting results. This paper adds to this debate, presenting the results of a survey conducted in 2009 and 2010 among non-exchange and exchange students from thirteen European countries, based on a pretest - posttest nonequivalent groups design (n = 400). My analyses did not find any statistically significant differences over time within and between the groups of exchange and non-exchange students, and neither between students with similar identification scores at wave 1. Finally, an analysis of the relationship between social network types and identification patterns did also not yield any significant results. Altogether, these findings suggest the impact of European exchange programmes on European citizenship and a sense of European identity is relatively limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The austerity discourse is usually analysed as an academic as well as a policy discourse on current European reform processes. This paper explores how the austerity concept is used by different economic expert discourses to create identity images in the European political economy. Starting from an economic sociology as well as social studies of science perspective, the analysis investigates how three different expert discourses produce certain identity images of the “me” and the “other”. An analysis of identity images is essential to understand how roles for actors in the political economy are constructed. Whereas the “me” image points to the speaker of a certain discourse, the image of the “other” always relates to ways how the speaker interprets and perceives other actors. These images as role models appear in different political, media and economic contexts as means in social struggle over hegemony. Thus, austerity discourses contribute to the cultural and discursive formation of the European political economy. The analysis takes three examples to illustrate the diversity of the current discursive struggles over the present and future form of Europe: ordoliberal “law-and-order” economist’s discourses develop a “resolute” me-perspective, the economic experts from the Keynesian camp constitute the discursive “me” as a “critical” discourse position, and the pragmatists from the ECB take a “moderate” position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an editorial on regional innovation policies. Topics discussed include the interest in the field being mainly European as 90 of the documents have been published in Europe, the RIS approach that emerged in the 1990s linked to contributions on economic geography and cluster theory, and the importance of innovation to encourage competitiveness for regions.

Due to numerous idiosyncratic features, a profound variety in the level of development and in the nature of regional innovation systems is often acknowledged. This paper has aimed to contribute to existing research by unraveling mutual relationships among knowledge bases, R&D structure and innovation performance of European regions. Our analysis showed that the differences among the European regions in their prevailing knowledge base and in the absolute and relative sizes of key segments of R&D systems are systematic and mutually interwoven. Generally, advanced regions are often typified by the lowest share of synthetic knowledge base and either by a dominance of the private R&D or by a relatively balanced structure between private and public R&D, while the opposite holds for lagging regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social innovation is attracting increasing attention in research and policy, heightened by continuing austerity across Europe. Therefore, this paper examines earlier research into community-led local development (CLLD) initiatives in rural areas of Europe to develop our understanding of the meaning and scope of rural social innovation. We draw on a Schumpeterian view where innovations emerge from new combinations of resources that bring about positive changes and create value in society. A Schumpeterian social innovation framework is derived as the basis for re-analysing data from previous evaluations of LEADER policy in five different national contexts. This elicits a clearer understanding of social innovation in a rural development context, identifying different processes and outcomes that create social value. As the CLLD agenda and the demand for innovation in Europe gather pace, our aspirations are to inform future research and other initiatives on how to integrate social innovation into the design and evaluation of new rural development policies and programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialization (RIS3) was integrated as a key piece of the cohesion policy for the European Union (EU) for 2014–2020. During the recent years, more than 120 RIS3 have been developed, being a large-scale EU experience aimed to develop innovation-driven economic transformations at national and regional levels. The objective of this article is to explore the models that best explain innovative employment and the emergence of new markets in Europe's regions. For that purpose, the latest dataset of the Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2019 was used, and regressions performed to identify the main factors behind the impact of regional innovation. The results unveil the 'double edge role' that some variables have on regional innovation, indicating the difficulties of managing different trade-offs and of a standalone innovation policy strategy. Policy measures are discussed to best manage these critical compromises and increase the impact of RIS3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2012 we published an article on how attachment to social groups might extend from local communities to the nation and to a transnational entity in the context of the expanding European Union. Since then, the EU has expanded further to formally include a number of post-communist countries and began to face some significant backlash both in Western and Eastern Europe. Using extended International Social Survey Programme data covering 28 countries and 3 time-points between 1995 and 2015, we revisit the findings and conclusions of our original article. In addition, we complement our analysis with results from the Eurobarometer surveys between 2004 and 2019. Our updated analyses show that 1) the overall level of national identification did not increase substantially in the Western countries despite the rise in nationalist movements in Europe, 2) the length of membership in the EU does not necessarily increase European identification in the long run, notwithstanding a recent uptick in European identification, and 3) ethnic minorities, particularly in post-communist countries, have turned away from Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the rise of South Korea's webtoon industry and the fan–translators who are contributing to the transformation of this entrepreneurial digital comics format. By analyzing the creator-owned thriller series Bastard (2014 –) and its various foreign-language versions, the authors demonstrate how cultural intermediaries are localizing content and cultivating new audiences through a process of 'collective innovation'. The characteristics of this crowd-sourced activity offer new understanding of the dynamics and potential impacts of this digital comics industry, which is rapidly transforming with only limited policy intervention. The study illustrates how the French digital comics platform Delitoon is attempting to compete in this Korean-dominated domain, raising questions for enterprises seeking to join this popular wave of digital media. In doing so, this study fosters debate for business managers, policymakers, and practitioners in Europe's creative industries who are developing and promoting creator-owned content while challenging protectionist boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the multi-dimensional framework of Damanpour and Schneider [2006. "Phases of the Adoption of Innovation in Organizations: Effects of Environment, Organization and Top Managers 1." British Journal of Management 17 (3): 215–236], the purpose of this study is to identify the managerial, organizational and environmental determinants of social innovation, depicted in terms of the amount of special initiatives initiated for specific target groups. while considering the initiative's type (i.e. administrative versus technical). A lognormal double hurdle model, on a sample of approximately 5000 voluntary sports clubs (VSCs) from 9 different European countries, indicates significant effects for each level. In particular, positive managerial attitudes and public support through both financial and infrastructural resources are important predictors for a VSC to adopt special initiatives towards a target group. Furthermore, differences between determinants of administrative and technical initiatives are found. These results call for measures in terms of resource support from sports policy-makers at European, national and regional levels, along with the need for VSCs to meet the demands from neglected target groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The national ministers in charge of higher education of the majority of European countries agreed in the late 1990s to embark on reforms on the way towards a "European Higher Education Area". The major aim was to increase and enhance international student mobility, whereby the establishment of a convergent system of "cycles" of study programmes should be the major operational objective. Actually, the spread of the bachelor-master structure seems to have triggered an increase of degree mobility from outside Europe to Europe in the early years of the so-called "Bologna Process". This, however, slowed down subsequently. Moreover, the Bologna Process has not led to a growing pace of intra-European degree mobility. Since 2009, a new target is in the limelight: By 2020, 20% of graduates should have had international experience through study or internship in another country for at least some period. Actually, however, the rate of the event of student mobility during the course of study had been already quite high in many European countries around 2000 and did not increase further substantially thereafter. Thus, the quantitative target is a challenge for some countries with low outwards mobility. Altogether, the Bologna Process rather seems to have improved the conditions and the quality of intra-European mobility more substantially than its quantitative development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

20 years have passed since the Bologna declaration which has deeply changed the Higher Education System not only in Europe but worldwide. This introduction gives a tour of the contributions contained in the special issue of the journal "innovation". It argues that soft policies proved to be a mighty instrument for catching and focussing societal change and speeding it up. The worldwide shift towards policies of national interest might therefore also slow down processes of change and modernisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution we reflect on our experiences of co-designing and coordinating two comparative projects on prostitution policies in Europe by focusing in particular on the epistemological workings underpinning their design and execution. We set out two main goals. The first is to shed light on what the epistemological and methodological issues we encountered reveal about the field of prostitution policy studies, an endeavor which can contribute to better comparative research in the field. The second goal is to relate the scope, developments, outcomes and expectations of the two projects to recent attempts to identify a “one-size-fits-all” model of prostitution regulation, and to interrogate whether transplanting it across Europe is a desirable outcome. Building on the lessons learned from the projects, we propose an approach to prostitution policy development that is reflective of the specific contexts within which the policies are meant to be applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to examine the influence of the recent economic crisis on the quality of long-term care for older people in Belgium and the Netherlands. A mixed-method approach was applied, primarily focused on conducting semi-structured qualitative interviews with health professionals working in a management role in organizations providing long-term care for older people. The results show that Dutch organizations seem to be prepared for the influences of the economic crisis on the quality of its care provision primarily in terms of a sound system readiness. At the same time, Belgian organizations seem to be prepared for the influences of the economic crisis on the quality of its care provision primarily in terms of a favorable sociopolitical context. Comparing two countries allows for reciprocal lesson-drawing. The conclusion drawn in this study is that a sustainable long-term care system requires above all stability and structure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]