Profile

Karolina Osterczuk, Ph.D., is a researcher and academic lecturer. Professionally, she specializes in social innovations and the Theory of Change. In particular, she is interested in micro-dimensions of social transformation and the dynamics of grassroots activism. She researches models of collaboration and co-development of social innovations, and the mechanisms of community building.

For several years, she has been collaborating with social innovators and activists, such as cooperatives, collectives, artisans, and business, in Poland, Nepal, and India.

Dr. Osterczuk is the co-chair of the 3rd Conference on Social Innovations. Co-creating Change (June 2024), which provides a platform for meetings, discussions, and workshops focused on shaping social change.

Currently, she is one of the contributors to an European Reform University Alliance (ERUA) project, which aims to understand the determinants of the contemporary social challenges, and define the niches and opportunities conducive to the development of social entrepreneurship and social innovations (2022-2026).

Moreover, Dr. Osterczuk participated in various research projects, including “Social entrepreneurship - fundamentals”, a research and implementation project carried out by SWPS University in collaboration with the Women Entrepreneurship Foundation, and Stiftelsen Mangfold and Arbeidslivet (2022-2023). The project resulted in a series of meetings (30 hours) that helped to shape social innovations; “Institutionalization of social innovations” – the goal of the project was to understand how social innovation actors transform the world around them (2019-2021).

At SWPS University she teaches classes on effective team work, value creation for clients, and project implementation. In her teaching she uses creative methods and design thinking.