While there are a few Europe-wide Higher Education courses and/or programmes of study in social design and innovation at national levels, efforts to upscale them to a wider cross-national audience are lagging behind. If we are to develop a disciplinary benchmark that transcends national boundaries and achieve a wider consensus on the disciplinary boundaries thus providing for a level of comparability across national boundaries, the considerations and challenges confronting this upscaling, need to be addressed. This paper will elaborate on

this issue drawing from a combination of European policy documents and the research of the authors in the area of social design and innovation. The identification of some challenges confronting upscaling will provide a stepping stone for future investigations towards cross-national collaborations in the areas of social design, social innovation, and sustainability for all.

Authors: Ana Margarida Ferreira, Nicos Souleles, Stefania Savva