ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
This article is part of the Research TopicReimagining Higher Education: Responding Proactively to 21st Century Global ShiftsView all 42 articles
Exploring teachers' views on how educational methodologies foster social innovation competencies
Provisionally accepted
- 1UTRANSFER Associated Unit of CSIC at INGENIO (CSIC-Universitat Politècnica de València), Universitat de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
- 2Ingenio (CSIC-Universitat Politècnica de València), Valencia, Spain
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This paper highlights the role of higher education institutions in promoting the competencies required for students to engage with complex societal and professional environments. Embedding social innovation competencies into the educational experience enables universities not only to prepare graduates for the labor market but also to equip them to act as agents of change, contributing to societal transformations. To gain insights into which teaching-learning approaches should be used in higher education study programs to promote the appropriate social innovation competencies, the 'Spanish Universities Involvement in Social Innovation Activities' SUISIA data, collected during the academic year 2021/2022, is used. The findings highlight that the most effective development of social innovation competencies associated with organizational, entrepreneurial, collaborative, and resilience-related competencies arises from a balanced pedagogical approach, integrating student-centered methods with the structured guidance provided by teacher-centered instruction. The complementary interaction between methodologies such as design thinking, cooperative learning, gamification, oral presentations, and the teacher as the main source of information reinforces that students benefit from participatory learning without losing the conceptual coherence and experience that instructors provide. By promoting this combined pedagogical model and reducing disciplinary disparities in competency development, higher education institutions can better align their educational mission with the imperatives of sustainable development and social equity.
Keywords: competencies, higher education, social innovation, sustainability, teaching-learning methods
Received: 20 Nov 2025; Accepted: 15 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Isusi-Fagoaga, Planells-Aleixandre and García-Aracil. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ester Planells-Aleixandre
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