By implementing this project, we aimed to contribute to the debate on how social innovation shapes the professional identity of social workers, public servants, and social innovators, and to question the skills needed to engage with social innovation, as well as the role of higher education in fostering a critical perspective on these issues in light of contemporary societal, health, economic, and ethical challenges. Our operational objectives were: 1) to improve understanding of how social innovation is defined and perceived across national and regional contexts (action 1); 2) to identify similarities and differences in training profiles across partner institutions to support student and staff mobility (action 2); 3) to explore how professionals and managers perceive social innovation and social engineering, and the skills future graduates require (action 3); 4) to identify opportunities for sustainable mobility (e.g. internships, summer schools) and future research collaboration (action 4); and 5) to develop a digital platform connecting employers, teachers, students, and professionals in social work understood in a broad sense, facilitating access to internships, job offers, and CVs (action 5).
This project focused on the role of social innovation within contemporary societal, health, economic, and ethical contexts. It addressed specific needs related to social innovation and the role of higher education institutions: 1) The need to better understand how social innovation is perceived, defined, and conceptualized across different national and regional contexts; 2) The need to identify similarities and differences in training profiles within the curricula of partner institutions, particularly to enhance student and staff mobility and promote exchange opportunities; 3) The need to deepen knowledge of how professionals and managers in relevant sectors perceive social innovation and social engineering, and to determine which skills would benefit graduates of the partner institutions’ bachelor’s and master’s programmes; 4) The need to identify concrete opportunities for sustainable mobility of students and teachers, such as internships and summer schools, to "bridge the social" among partner institutions, and to foster future collaborative research and publication initiatives on social innovation; 5) the need for a digital platform to help connect employers, social workers, educators, and students in the field of social work.