Citizen science is becoming increasingly important as a new and participative mode of knowledge production. An essential element of citizen science is co-creation. Co-creation is by no means limited to a modus operandi for participatory science, but introduces a form of collaborative way of working with society in the sense of citizen science. Results from the H2020 SISCODE project show that co-creation is located inside and between different sectors of society. This article focuses on the question of how co-creation can be better understood in different contexts, and presents a heuristic model that has already been used for case study analyses in the SISCODE project. After an introduction to the field of co-creation and a brief description of the heuristic model, its capability is exemplarily demonstratedviaapplication to two selected cases, followed by a discussion of central learnings and implications for further research on co-creation.

This article provides a comprehensive review of social innovation and grassroots innovation over the last 5 years, offering a detailed analysis of both concepts. This study explores the integration of grassroots innovation and social innovation based on an extensive literature review. It examines five dimensions within the literature: key fields, disciplines, actors, geographical areas and theoretical frameworks. Despite significant research in recent decades, there is a notable gap of literature devoted to grassroots innovation and its position within discourse of social innovation. This paper explores the differences and similarities between the concepts of social innovation and grassroots innovation in order to better understand the use of both concepts, the cases in which they are used and possible complementarities. The main findings of the literature on combining the concepts of social innovation and grassroots innovation focus on social enterprises, while research on grassroots innovation as a stand-alone concept focuses on community-led initiatives, civil society organisations, cooperatives and local leaders. Geographically, India plays a very important role in grassroots and social innovation research, followed by Brazil and Spain. In terms of theoretical approach, the combination of social innovation and grassroots innovation has a strong sociological focus, emphasising theories of social practice, collective action, solidarity and community. In contrast, the theoretical frameworks of grassroots innovation are more anchored in power relations and socio-technical transitions, including, for example, resistance to innovation. Grassroots innovation offers practical insights into understanding innovation through the lenses of grassroots and community-based social change. Similarly, social innovation can contribute to the debate on grassroots innovations by understanding not only the agency of actors, but also the innovation ecosystem, actors and types of innovation. Further empirical research on the understanding and application of both concepts in the global North and South in academic discourse offers great potential, therefore potential research questions have been raised here for further investigation.

New digital solutions are often lacking integration and acceptance by potential users. Therefore, only a small amount of innovative software solutions is really in use. The article describes a co-creation process by integrating end-users and relevant stakeholders right in the beginning in a social innovation process. Within this process, technology is seen as an enabler of innovation getting its relevance from new social practices of the people using it (e.g. working practices). Against the background of EU funded projects conducted by the authors (GT-VET, GREEN STAR, COCOP, and ROBOHARSH) the relevance of mutual learning processes of engineers / researchers / trainers on the one side and end-users / beneficiaries / learners on the other side will become evident. Moreover, new (digital and analogue) skills of employees have been identified as key for a successful digital transformation. Thereby, this article shows a twofold perspective on social innovation in education: new skills demands for employees and mutual learning processes of developers and users/stakeholders. To obtain needed skills, traditional innovation practices have to be changed by setting up a social innovation process. Such a process design has to include stakeholder and user involvement beyond pure feedback on a new technology. Co-creation means that experience, knowledge and ideas of users will be considered to ensure high usability and impact of the new technology framed by organisational and people related measures. In this respect, the innovation process and the innovation itself is much more than technological functionality–it is a contribution to new social practices and performances of the people that innovate and use the technology.

The paradigm of innovation has evolved over the last decades worldwide. The old conception of innovation as technological change has become more diversified and specialised. Current debates express the need to provide a holistic view of innovation, with its pros and cons, including all dimensions of innovation in society and different fields. This paper consists of a qualitative review focusing on three concepts: ‘innovation’, ‘social innovation’ and ‘innovation in education’. This research includes a historical analysis within 1939–2019 as the base period of analysis. This article is based on 108 different sources, which were carefully selected. The analysis was carried out with content analysis in our main sample. This paper contributes to our understanding of innovation more holistically, by discovering how innovation is understood and used, but also by looking at the different stages it has gone through in historical debates and evolutionary trends. This article presents different perspectives on innovation over time and helps to recognise the evolution of the concept of innovation and the emergence of social innovation as a field of its own. Furthermore, the relevance of innovation in the field of education is presented and current debates on the understanding of innovation are situated.

Social innovations and changes in educational systems are the cornerstones for success of emerging countries. Current developments in Brazil and heterogeneity of society make the country a perfect candidate to investigate these topics. Drawing on historical analysis and content analysis, the author builds a model that recognizes patterns of social change. This model enables to analyze social change through the interaction of radical changes, innovations, social movements, and reforms. This model is applied to two periods in Brazil, where social movements, like the revolution in the 1930s and the military coup in the 1960s, triggered a series of social changes. The findings of this study suggest that social change is a cyclical process where social innovations and educational change are involved. These findings have significant implications for our understanding of current changes in the Brazilian society and provide a key instrument for analyzing social change in other societies.

The ecological and digital transformations of the steel industry intensify already existing skill shortages and create specific skill demands that are currently not being met. One of the main problems in this sector lies in the lack of sufficient information on which skills companies need and which skills trainings are suitable for today’s challenges. In addition, more information is needed to provide more and better information for policy-making processes for getting the sector’s workforce well-equipped for digitalisation and decarbonisation. This paper uses the framework of skills intelligence in the steel sector, reflecting on theoretical developments and the application of concrete tools in the European projects BEYOND 4.0 and ESSA. The main research questions guiding this work are: To what extent is the concept of skills intelligence useful in the steel sector, and how can it be applied in the steel sector in Europe? This paper provides empirical data based on qualitative and quantitative research carried out in the mentioned projects. The main contribution of this paper is the development of concrete reflections on the concept of skills intelligence based on tools in the steel sector. This work operationalises the skills intelligence approach at sectoral level, namely for the steel industry, and shows how this sector approach can be implemented at the European, national and regional levels. The main findings suggest that skills intelligence in the steel sector is not limited to the preparation and presentation of data but creates a governance structure to mitigate skills imbalances.