Research at the Department of Applied Social Sciences focusses on the investigation and promotion of innovative approaches to solving social problems and improving social cohesion. The focus is on questions of how new ideas, concepts and practices can be developed, implemented and disseminated in order to bring about positive change in various social areas.
Social innovations are deliberately initiated innovations that bring about social improvement. They lead to changes in social interaction, i.e. they have an impact on ‘social issues’ because they transform existing processes, responsibilities or distribution patterns. However, the difference between social innovations on the one hand and economic or political innovations on the other does not lie in the subject area affected by the innovation – in this case, the social sphere, the economic sector or politics; rather, the decisive factor is the extent to which the innovation and its diffusion promise an improvement over the status quo – in the case of social innovations, this is an improvement in social terms.
All research activities of the Department of Applied Social Sciences can be found in the Research Portal.
Head of Research
| Location: | Campus Urstein |
|---|---|
| Room: | Meierei - 1.13 |
| T: | +43-50-2211-1858 |
| E: | elmar.schuell@fh-salzburg.ac.at |