Social Innovation and Higher Education: From Theory to Practice

Since the late 20th century, humanity has faced several challenges that make us feel increasingly vulnerable. Increasing territorial and social disadvantages, lagging regions and municipalities, the drastic deterioration of the quality of life of the people living there, economic processes and sustainability issues are matters that frequently generate wide public debates in society and, concurrently, necessitate social collaboration. Therefore, recent years have seen a growing focus on social innovations that can respond to these challenges in a complex way. In parallel, in response to changing socio-economic expectations, by the end of the 20th century, higher education institutions faced several new challenges. The “third mission” of higher education institutions, that is, the concept of social responsibility of higher education institutions fits in with these activities. Since the author has been working in higher education for 25 years, she has also become interested in the social responsibility of higher education institutions. She has also involved predominantly in social innovation projects, she participate in research on social innovation and do so in a higher education context – it is these two areas that shall be linked in this book. The aim of the present volume is thus to fill a gap by linking the fields of social innovation and higher education, and thereby facilitate reflection for stakeholders of higher education, innovation practitioners, policymakers and the general public interested in this subject matter.

Dr. habil. Kinga Szabó-Tóth studied sociology, community development, coaching and social research methodology at different universities including the University of Miskolc [Hungary], University of Manchester [UK], obtained her PhD at the Corvinus University of Budapest [Hungary], and also has a habilitation degree from the University of Debrecen ([Hungary]. Since 2008, she is associate professor and also the director of Institute of Applied Social Sciences at the University of Miskolc, Hungary, also teaching at several universities in Hungary. Previously, Szabó-Tóth held Marie Curie fellowship at the CCSR, University of Manchester, and has been a visiting lecturer in several European universities under the Erasmus mobility programme. Szabó-Tóth is a member of the Board of the Hungarian Sociological Association, and also is a member of the Public Council of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as well as the member of the Sociological Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Her previous books include BUILDING FROM SCARCITY. Applied sociology research on disadvantage and disadvantage compensation, University of Miskolc, 2023 and IDENTITY OF SUCCESSFUL GYPSIES IN ENGLAND AND HUNGARY, L’Harmattan Publisher, 2008. Her papers have been published by, among other outlets SZELLEM ÉS TUDOMÁNY, SZOCIOLÓGIAI SZEMLE, and SZÁZADVÉG.