Participation in social innovation processes: A case study of Roskilde University Impact Hub

This study seeks to investigate the role and character of democratic participation in social innovation (SI) processes. The study builds empirically on a collaborative design process of an Impact hub conducted between a social enterprise, Roskilde University researchers and students during 2019. It draws on concepts of participation (Carpentier, 2011, Javnost, 2016) from a political critical perspective and social innovation (SI) (Moulaert and MacCallum, 2019) from a democratic empowering perspective. The study finds a significant degree of variety in the intensity and characteristics of participation in the investigated SI process, most likely influencing the project’s potential to facilitate social innovation. One critical barrier concerned the enactment of different more or less visible and active ways of participation leading to ambiguity in project development.