Research for the development of a social innovation programme

To successfully implement a social innovation grant project that included research, the client turned to MCG.

The project included a series of focus group interviews with representatives of the following groups:

• Representatives of the government, higher education institutions, companies, and social enterprises;
• Academic specialists, industry experts, social entrepreneurs, HR specialists;
• Teachers, students, programme developers, social innovation policy makers;
• Evaluation experts, educators, financiers, politicians, representatives of monitoring organisations.

Research objectives

1. Identification of key stakeholders in the field of social innovations
2. Description of the roles and spheres of influence of stakeholders
3. Analysis of interaction between ecosystem participants
4. Assessing the impact of stakeholders on the development of social innovations
5. Forecasting the skills needs of social innovators
6. Evaluation of the effectiveness of educational programmes
7. Identification of tools and methods for monitoring and evaluation of impact

Results

• PESTEL analysis prepared
• A portrait of a stakeholder in the social innovation ecosystem was created
• Recommendations for the development of an ideal social innovation curriculum

With high speed and efficiency, the MCG team adapted the materials, recruited hard-to-reach groups of participants, and conducted the research in accordance with the grant requirements.