The “Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Social Services” project focuses on ‘teaching’ and ‘research’. In terms of teaching, the aim is to develop and test innovative teaching and learning concepts in the field of social services that deal with the implementation of innovations in the social sector. The focus is on topics of public welfare orientation in the third sector, aspects of founding new social enterprises of various kinds (social entrepreneurship) and topics of entrepreneurial design of innovation projects in existing social enterprises (social intrapreneurship). The teaching and learning materials relate to technical, management-related and structural elements and are intended to provide a didactic and methodological basis for a regular teaching program.
In the research part of the project, an empirical study is carried out in the Siegen-Wittgenstein district, in which data on the status and development of legal forms, support structures and organizational types of social enterprises in the social sector are collected and evaluated. We are interested in how managers in particular assess their situation, the need for modernization and the innovative strength of their organization and its field environment and what developments they have perceived over time. Selected fields of social work, such as child day care or legal care, in which a social entrepreneurship dynamic only becomes clear on closer inspection, will be examined in more detail.
The results will be discussed intensively with stakeholders in the region in various formats. In addition, the results on the social economy in Siegen-Wittgenstein will be presented at European Round Tables and compared with other European regions.