In September 2022, EU-SPRI in cooperation with TU Dortmund University (Social Research Centre) and Fraunhofer ISI will organise the Early Career Research Conference (ECC) entitled “Social Innovation Policy: Concepts, Methods and Policy Practices”. The event is supported by ESSI. Early career researchers are invited to actively participate.
Conference structure and formats
The conference will offer a varied programme, including paper presentation sessions, keynote talks, policy and practitioners panel, a conference award, networking sessions, social activities and conference dinner.
Early career researchers can choose one of the two following options to present their work: 1) full paper presentation (15-minute presentation followed by a discussion) or 2) speed talk or poster presentation (5-minute pitches, followed by discussion in break-out groups). The audience is expected (and encouraged) to actively participate in the discussion. For each full paper, a senior and a junior (early career) discussant will prepare direct feedback to the presenter.
This Early Career Conference addresses the guiding theme “Social Innovation Policy: Concepts, Methods and Policy Practices”. The conference is organized in streams according to the above thematic fields.
The conference will take place in person in Dortmund, Germany (if possible).
Anticipated list of speakers/ teachers
Jakob Edler / Katrin Ostertag (Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI, Karlsruhe) |
Jürgen Howaldt / Christoph Kaletka (TU Dortmund University, Faculty of Social Science, Social Research Center sfs) |
Julia Wittmayer (Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences ESSB, Rotterdam) |
Klaus Schuch (Centre for Social Innovation ZSI, Vienna) |
Judith Terstriep (Institute for Work and Technology IAT, Gelsenkirchen) |
Mike Asquith (European Environmental Agency, Copenhagen) |
Paper submission (instructions & deadlines)
Early career researchers interested in participating in this ECC must submit an extended abstract (750 to 1,000 words, including key references) as well as a short motivation letter (1-2 paragraphs, max 1 page) no later than 16th of May 2022 via email to
Rick Hölsgens: henricus.hoelsgens@tu-dortmund.de
The decision will be communicated to the authors by the 7th of June 2022. If accepted, (draft) full papers must be submitted 3 weeks prior to the conference, i.e. 31st of August (speed talk submissions only need to submit their presentation as pdf).
Evaluation and selection criteria of submissions is based on academic quality, thematic relevance and motivation.
Time table
| May 16, 2022: Deadline for extended abstracts (750 – 1,000 words) |
| June 7, 2022: Notification of acceptance |
| August 31, 2022: Deadline for (draft) full papers (5000 – 7000 words) (or slides in the case of speed talks) |
| September 21-23, 2022: Conference |
For more information, see the full event description and call for papers here: