Social innovation – i.e. new goods, services, methods etc that are social in their means and/or ends – is highlighted as one of the main tools of the European Union to deal with societal challenges such as poverty, unemployment, ageing populations and climate change. The new policy strategies for growth and innovation of the EU include a strong commitment to promote social innovation. The importance of social innovation for growth and welfare is also underlined in Sweden’s new national policy strategy for innovation. This social perspective on innovation differs from earlier innovation policies, which mainly focused technological product innovation and high-tech service innovation. Since these types of innovation primarily involve men-dominated industries, organizations, networks and processes in a distinct gendered pattern, the public resource distribution and other forms of public legitimacy to innovation actors has been unevenly distributed among women and men. By expanding the focus from technological to social aspects of innovation, the new innovation policies seem to open up public innovation support to a wider range of actors, industries and innovations. This expansion might imply a more equal inclusion of women and men in innovation since it encompasses areas and arenas where women are more active as employees or entrepreneurs as well, compared to the areas and arenas focused in earlier innovation policies. This paper aims to investigate to what extent the focus on social innovation in the policy strategies of Sweden and EU serves as a process of undoing gender in public promotion of the development of new goods, services and methods. The empirical data consists of policy documents from Sweden and EU. The theoretical framework consists of research on gender and innovation as well as on social innovation. The data emanates from the research project "Gender driven social innovation" 2013-2015 with financing from VINNOVA.
