Social innovations are widely discussed as answers to social challenges and are also a central reference point in the BMFTR-funded research project BePart. However, the concept has a number of scientific pitfalls. In particular, the associated implicit assumption of a belief in progress, its equation of change with improvement and the inherent optimism of control require critical reflection.

The analysis of the discursive charging and enforcement of certain practices as social innovation also appears particularly revealing. What is relevant here is who perceives innovations as "innovative" and from what position. This is because social innovations are not only produced on the pragmatic level of addressing needs, but also require additional semantic marking - labeling as "socially innovative". Innovativeness always presupposes an evaluative attribution, as the promotion of a social innovation presupposes a problematization of a social issue as being in need of change and processing. It is therefore crucial to analyze who has the interpretative power to assert their own perceptions of problems and the innovative solution strategies based on them as legitimate.

We argue that social science research should not subscribe to the concept's optimistic connotations of progress, but that its task is to analytically accompany the processes of discursive marginalization and the combination of political and scientific interpretative power. This applies in particular to current developments in which the social sciences are increasingly being called upon by politicians to research and test social innovations.

We were able to contribute this critical perspective in a keynote speech entitled "Controllability of social innovations?" at the closing event of the BMFTR funding line "Researching regional factors for innovation and change - strengthening social innovation capacity" on June 3, 2025.

In addition, the article "Social innovations as labeling in current transformation processes" by Franz Erhard and Nadine Jukschat was recently published in the Criminological Journal 57 (2), pp. 114-111. It links the debate on social innovations with that on social problems in order to explicate the social construction processes.