Author: Hans-Werner Franz

Hans-Werner Franz is a senior researcher and consultant. He is an Executive Board member of the Professional Association of German Sociologists (BDS) as well as the Managing Director of the European School of Social Innovation (ESSI). His well-established track record includes numerous publications on total quality management, organisation development, social innovation and vocational training. Christoph Kaletka is a senior researcher and member of the management board at the Sozialforschungsstelle (Social Research Center) of the Technical University of Dortmund (TU Dortmund), Germany. His main fields of work are social innovation and digital inclusion. He holds a Ph D in communication science and is a lecturer at TU Dortmund’s faculty of rehabilitation science, with a focus on social innovation. Bastian Pelka is a senior researcher and project manager at Sozialforschungsstelle (Social Research Center) of the Technical University of Dortmund (TU Dortmund), Germany. He is working on the question how every person can profit from digital technologies and how the digital world could be made usable for everybody. Employing mainly qualitative research methods, he is specialized in stakeholder involvement in research and innovation. He is a lecturer at TU Dortmund’s faculty of rehabilitation science, with a focus on digital inclusion and empowerment.  Ruggiera Sarcina is a senior researcher and consultant, business development manager at the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Canada. Her focus is on projects dealing with local development policies, cluster development, and innovation and internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises.