Quantum mechanics

Engineering

Philosophy

Local Development

Public relations

Pedagogy

Economics

Social innovation

Business

Economic geography

Regional science

Physics

Action research

Discipline

Political science

Economic policy

Epistemology

Social capital

Social network analysis

Sociology

European commission

Action (physics)

European union

Engineering ethics

Social science

European Planning Studies

This paper gives an overview of over two decades of research projects on the study of the relationship between local development and social innovation (SI) made by the international action research network coordinated by the first author and funded by the European Commission. It explains the need to study the relationships between local development and opportunities for human development, and the aspirations for an epistemological turn, away from local growth to local development, and from disciplinary to inter- and trans-disciplinary perspectives. Using a chronological overview, the paper concentrates on questions related to the specific objectives of the projects and their epistemological (ontological, theoretical, methodological and validation) challenges. It explains how by meeting these challenges, over the years the network built a Social Innovation Action Research framework that can now be used as a reference for mutual enrichment between different approaches in SI action research.

Towards a social innovation (SI) based epistemology in local development analysis: lessons from twenty years of EU research