Innovative Methodological Approach to Analyze Innovation and Social Impact

Abstract

The scientific literature has presented evidence of the links between innovation and change and has published excellent methodologies to analyze them. Nowadays, international scientific programs like Horizon Europe prioritize social impact and co-creation; researchers need to develop methodologies to analyze the link of innovation with change and new knowledge and specially with social impact. This paper presents an innovative methodological approach to this endeavor using Social Media Analytics to investigate citizens' participation in paying attention to and differentiating between innovations with social impact and innovations without social impact. The method used to address this aim is Social Media Analytics, specifically through a Twitter sample on innovation and social impact composed of 16,794 tweets obtained during January–June 2021. The result obtained indicates that the definition of methodologies to capture citizens’ participation in paying attention to and differentiating between innovation and social impact is crucial for advancing this innovative methodological approach to analyze innovation with social impact.