This article presents an approach to measuring social innovation. Indicators emerge from: (1) the development of a theoretically grounded measurement model, (2) a systematic review of 30 established measurement approaches. The article serves three purposes: First, it develops the conceptual understanding for social innovation. Second, through operationalization it strengthens the link between theory and empirical phenomena. Third, it paves ground for national or regional measurement of social innovation and is thus, relevant to policy making.

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This article deals with the policy discourse on social innovation at the European Union (EU) level as well as across nine European countries. We perform an exploratory analysis of relevant policy documents focusing on articulated policy authority, suggested actors, and key outcomes of social innovation. We also conduct an explanatory testing of the applicability of the varieties of capitalism as a traditional innovation classification system to social innovation. We find that the policy discourse across Europe lacks systemization and that EU agendas are only incompletely replicated at the individual country level. We also find that social innovation policies largely defy the principles governing traditional innovation policy regimes, which necessitates new or revised classification frames.

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Today we face many societal problems, such as climate degradation, energy shortages, increasing inequality, and demographic change. Solutions for these problems require far-reaching changes and new and untried approaches. Social Innovation (SI) could be a significant factor in tackling the challenges to come. The ‘reflection on the long-term effects of social innovations’ is a relatively new topic but is attracting growing interest. While technology assessments are regularly used to study the consequences of technical innovations, similar assessments for social innovations are rare. This paper explores and analyses the current state of theoretical, conceptual work on the assessment for SI and their consequences, related concepts, and relevant activities. Perspectives and options for further developments in this field are derived. The method used is a structured literature review. The results show that scientific research concerning the assessment of the consequences of social innovations seems to be still in its infancy. The boundaries between established topics (such as sustainability, user orientation, including social entrepreneurship) and newer concepts are fluid. However, alongside the different approaches and views, a certain convergence of perspectives with regard to the consequences and effects of (social) innovations can be observed. Similar questions and issues are dealt with using similar approaches and methods, and are sometimes confronted with similar obstacles.