Project Funding: "Society of Innovations – Impact Challenge at Universities"

Improving and future-proofing university education for students is an ongoing process. During the winter semester 2023/24 and summer semester 2024, a project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) explored the best practices to integrate social innovations into entrepreneurship education.

The SIV – Social Innovation Venturing project, led by our ARRTI colleague Christin Eckerle (EnTechnon) in collaboration with the IRS – Institute of Control Systems, successfully demonstrated that integrating social and environmental aspects can address not only technical but also societal challenges.

As part of the "Student Innovation Lab" (SIL), the focus was on empowering students to develop sustainable and socially responsible innovations. The prototype implementation of the concept within SIL, which provided access to a strong network of social actors and targeted workshops, demonstrated that social innovations and technological progress are not mutually exclusive. The project also benefited significantly from ARRTI’s insights and offerings on responsible innovation.

For those interested, insights from all funded projects, as well as practical methods and tools, can be found in the "SISEE-Broschüre".

Through the "Society of Innovations – Impact Challenge at Universities" funding program, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research supported 12 universities with projects dedicated to researching and applying further education tools for Social Innovation Education (SIE) and Social Entrepreneurship Education (SEE). These projects were connected and supported by a cross-sectional initiative led by the University for Sustainable Development Eberswalde, the University of Bayreuth, and the Social Entrepreneurship Network Germany (SEND e.V.).