Distinguished research in the Leuphana Innovation Community “School Improvement and Leadership”

In the field of empirical educational research, Prof. Pietsch and his colleagues are the first to investigate how innovative networks between schools and external partners can succeed: The results of their study show how schools can further develop learning and teaching through “open innovation”. This term refers to the active exchange of knowledge with external players with the aim of joint innovation. “Schools usually cooperate with other schools or ministries, but very rarely with other organisations. Our study is based on data from a representative sample of over 400 German school headmasters and proves that it is very productive for schools to build networks with non-school stakeholder groups,” explains Marcus Pietsch.

The research paper “Open innovation networks: a driver for knowledge mobilisation in schools?” was a preliminary work for the Innovation Community “School Improvement and Leadership” at Leuphana. The Heisenberg Professor of Educational Science is therefore particularly pleased about the award: “At the beginning, we didn’t know whether we would be able to get the paper accepted anywhere. The topic of open innovation didn’t even exist in educational science before. But the prize shows that our work is being recognised as relevant. This success encourages us to continue our research and our work in the community.” Since 1993, Emerald Publishing has been honouring outstanding contributions to research in various disciplines with the Literati Awards, which are selected according to the criteria of excellence and impact. In this context, Pietsch emphasises that “the Outstanding Paper Award is given to research with practical impact. It’s not just about a good article, but also about the fact that it can contribute to actual change.”

The Innovation Community continues the research with co-operation partners and puts it into practice. Co-author Dr. Burak Aydin, postdoc and cooperation partner in the DFG project “Educational Leadership and Innovation”, also continues his work in this field, as well as Jasmin Witthöft, who is writing her doctoral thesis on “open innovation” at the Professorship for Educational Science. Together with Marcus Pietsch, they have since published further articles with research findings on the topic and are thus conducting pioneering research in educational science at Leuphana.