Measuring Social Innovation Orientation: My Eu-SPRI Circulation Experience at MIOIR
by Dr. Katrin Bauer
© Janna Schepers
During my three-months Eu-SPRI Early Career Researcher circulation at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIOIR), Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, I had the opportunity to further develop my postdoctoral research at the intersection of public sector social innovation, innovation ecosystems, public entrepreneurship, and science, technology and innovation policy.
As Assistant Professor at the Social Research Center (sfs), Department of Social Sciences at TU Dortmund University, my work focuses on how public sector actors can enable social innovation in response to societal challenges. More specifically, my research stay at MIOIR allowed me to refine and pre-test a work-in-progress scale for measuring social innovation orientation (SIO). The scale aims to capture how individuals and organizations, particularly in the public sector, orient themselves towards enabling social innovation.
Before the circulation, the SIO scale had primarily been developed from the perspective of the German public sector and the German social innovation ecosystem. The stay in Manchester therefore provided a valuable opportunity to reflect on the conceptual clarity, robustness, and potential international applicability of the scale in a different research and institutional environment. Discussions with MIOIR colleagues helped sharpen the thematic relationship between social innovation orientation, social innovation enablement, strategic orientations, public sector innovation, and innovation ecosystems. I was able to apply a structured scale development procedure and pre-test the SIO scale and received valuable feedback by academics and practitioners specifically on the comprehensibility of items, the relevance of dimensions, and the transferability of a scale. With regard to this, the feedback confirmed the relevance of the overall approach, while also showing where items need to be refined to travel better across different national and institutional settings.
A particularly important aspect of the stay was the further development of the role of artificial intelligence (AI) within the measurement approach. Rather than treating AI only as a technological tool, the exchange at MIOIR helped me think of AI as part of a broader enabling infrastructure for social innovation. This is relevant, for instance, in relation to e-government, citizen services, data-based decision-making, and the ways in which public sector organizations may use emerging technologies to address societal challenges in more inclusive and responsible ways.
Beyond the scale development itself, I benefited greatly from the wider academic environment at MIOIR. I participated in research seminars, workshops, informal academic exchanges, and a one-week professional workshop on policy evaluation. These activities exposed me to current debates in innovation studies, science, technology and innovation policy, research evaluation, responsible innovation, emerging technologies, and public sector innovation. They also broadened my methodological perspective, including insights into quantitative experimental designs, qualitative approaches, AI-supported methods, bibliometrics, scientometrics, and policy evaluation.
Beyond formal academic activities, the stay was also enriching through everyday cultural and intellectual immersion. Sharing an office with several visiting researchers from different parts of the world created many opportunities for informal exchange about academic systems, research cultures, methodological traditions, and the practical realities of conducting research in different institutional and national contexts. These conversations broadened my perspective on global research approaches and added an important interpersonal and intercultural dimension to the circulation experience.
During my stay, I also participated in the R&D Management Conference in Manchester. My contribution, which is co-authored by my colleagues at sfs, Christoph Kaletka, Ralf Kopp, Daniel Krüger, Marthe Zirngiebl, Carlotta Buchholz, and Alexander Dederichs as part of the German SIGU platform, was presented in the session “Innovation, People, Place, and Research: Strengthening the UK’s Innovation Ecosystem.” While the session focused on the UK innovation ecosystem, our paper introduced Germany as a case and discussed how social innovation is taken up by higher education institutions. This allowed me personally to connect my research to broader debates on innovation ecosystems and to receive valuable feedback from an international audience.
The stay has already resulted in a short paper version that will serve as the basis for a full manuscript on social innovation enablement and measurement in the public sector. In the next steps, I will further revise the SIO scale based on the feedback received in Manchester, especially regarding its AI-related and policy-related dimensions. I also plan to develop the extended abstract into a full paper and submit the work to international conferences in innovation studies, management, entrepreneurship, public sector innovation, and social innovation research.
Looking ahead, the circulation has laid the foundation for future collaboration with colleagues at MIOIR and within the wider Eu-SPRI community. I am also exploring the possibility of a further research stay at MIOIR in 2027, independently of the present Eu-SPRI ECR circulation funding, to continue the joint work on the manuscript, further refine the comparative and international perspective of the SIO scale, and develop follow-up research activities.
Overall, the Eu-SPRI circulation was highly valuable for strengthening my postdoctoral research profile in public entrepreneurship, social innovation enablement and co-creation and longer-term habilitation trajectory. At the same time, the stay enriched collaboration opportunities for my own research projects and, certainly, of my home institution, sfs at TU Dortmund University, by strengthening links to MIOIR, the Eu-SPRI community, and broader debates on innovation policy, public entrepreneurship, and social innovation.
I am very grateful for the opportunity to spend this time at MIOIR. The circulation offered exactly what makes international research exchange so valuable: space to test ideas, receive critical feedback, build collaborations, and rethink one’s own work from a different institutional and disciplinary perspective. I strongly encourage other ECR researchers in the EU-SPRI community to take that chance and apply for a circulation award. Likewise, I would like to motivate future Eu-SPRI circulation fellows to use this opportunity not only to advance a specific project, but also to become part of a community in which ideas can be developed across fields, institutions, and countries.