Call for Papers
Submission deadline: May 15, 2026
Do we already have the remedies for the challenges facing contemporary society? After three decades of intensive reflection on social innovation, we have moved closer to a comprehensive understanding of social needs, problem structures, and the pathways necessary for meaningful change.
We now call for a decisive shift in narrative: moving from polycrisis to polisolutions. We particularly welcome submissions that rethink existing institutions and propose viable alternatives. Our goal is to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue on current visions of the common good—and, crucially, how these visions can be embedded within public policies, organizational frameworks, and everyday practices.
We invite researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to join this conversation and contribute to shaping new pathways for social innovation.
We welcome submissions in the following formats:
- papers
- poster presentations
- workshop proposals (include number of participants, program overview, learning outcomes, and requirements)
PLEASE NOTE: If you wish to submit more than one type of proposal, you need to complete the submission form again, for each type of proposal separately.
Submission Form
Submission themes
Your submission, concerning social innovation, may fall into one of the follwoing categories:
1. Institutions in Transition: Learning, Unlearning, and Systemic Change
Which dimensions of formal and informal institutions manifest social innovation?
- Local institutions as laboratories of change
- Innovation in the public sector
- Trust in institutions as a democratic resource
- Participation, co-governance, commons
- Public policies as learning processes rather than one-off reforms
- Diffusion and scaling of change
- Deliberative democracy
- Local institutional innovations
2. Technology for Social Transformation: Between Empowerment and Control
How to design and implement technologies that enhance human and ecological well-being? Potential topics include:
- Civic tech and participatory platforms
- AI in social services, education, and the labor market
- Technologies reducing environmental impact
- Social consequences of technological development and solutions
- Disinformation and credibility
3. Everyday Life as a Space for of Change: New Practices, Beliefs, and Rituals
Everyday life as a sphere of practice, emergence of norms, decision-making, and change-oriented activity:
- Sharing economy and circularity
- Consumerism and the pressure of cultural norms
- Urban and rural grassroots initiatives as laboratories of social change
- New communities of solidarity, support, and interconnected needs
- Mobility, remote work, new rhythms of life
- Dialogue across divisions
- Future skills: from care and tenderness to critical thinking, resilience, and cooperation
- Interculturality, migration, and local integration
4. Place, Infrastructure, and Virtual Spaces: Spheres Where Change Happens
How spatial layouts and infrastructure shape social relations, social innovation, and a sense of belonging. Potential topics include:
- Architecture, urban planning, and design as tools for shaping well- being
- New forms of housing and living infrastructure
- Smart city as social infrastructure
- Architecture of virtual spaces supporting social innovation
5. Social Imaginaries, Narratives, and Paradigms: Reaffirming Futures
Potential topics include:
- New paradigms: regenerativity, resilience, posthumanism, planetary thinking, degrowth, deliberative and participatory democracy
- Interregnum, uncertainty, and crisis of meaning in social theory
- Ethics of care, relationality, and the commons
- The role of narratives, symbols, metaphors, and aesthetics in social change
6. Impact-Oriented Organizations: Beyond Metrics and Towards Action
Organizations as designers of social life conditions. Potential topics include:
- Social enterprises, B Corps, and the mission-driven economy
- Action rather than reporting within ESG strategies
- Impact measurement and its political consequences
- Cross-sector collaboration
- New models of leadership and organizational culture that generate impact
- Cross-sector engagement in creating social innovations
7. Mental Resilience and Collective Well-being in an Age of Polycrisis
Well-being as infrastructure for agency, not a private issue. Potential topics include:
- Shifting societal needs
- Burnout in the social sector and education
- Community-based support models
- Impact of urbanization and technology on individual and social wellbeing
- Innovations in the field of neurodiversity
8. Trickster Perspectives on Social Innovation: Things and Phenomena that Hinder, Bend, and Neutralize Change
Critical reflection on what blocks change or neutralizes the impact of social innovation. Potential topics include:
- Narratives of fear vs. building social awareness
- Escalation of international conflicts
- Ecological consequences of warfare
- Techno-solutionism
- Participation without power
- Social impact as marketing
- Smart city as a narrative of control
- Ecological and social consequences of technological development
- Relevance to the conference theme
- Methodological or conceptual quality
- Innovativeness and originality
- Potential for interdisciplinary discussion
SUBMISSION FORM
Submission deadline: May 15, 2026
