Contemporary societies face increasingly complex environmental and social challenges, including climate change, resource scarcity, inequality, and demographic pressures. Technological innovations that address sustainable and social innovation challenges may represent a way towards transformative change (Gerli et al., 2021). Technological innovation, when driven by long-term societal needs, can contribute significantly to creating inclusive, resilient, and environmentally conscious forms of value. However, because societal challenges are systemic in nature, innovation efforts must extend beyond single organizations and instead emerge through networks of interdependent actors (Granstrand & Holgersson, 2020).

Innovation ecosystems are widely recognized as promising settings for addressing such complexity(Adner, 2017; Jacobides et al., 2018). By bringing together firms, public institutions, research organizations, communities, and social economy actors, IEs create fertile spaces for capability sharing, experimentation, collective intelligence activation and, in the end, value creation (Avelino et al., 2020). They have the potential to generate and scale sustainable and socially-oriented technological innovations that support broader sustainability transitions.

Yet, this potential is not automatic. IEs are themselves complex, evolving, and often fragmented systems (Autio, E. 2022). When oriented toward sustainability goals and technological innovation, their internal dynamics become even more multifaceted due to the multiple dimensions and metrics embedded in sustainability (Paasi et al., 2023) and the agency of technological artefacts. Moreover, the contribution of IEs to sustainable and socially-oriented innovation is often assumed rather than empirically demonstrated, and the mechanisms through which ecosystems influence sustainable outcomes remain insufficiently theorized and measured (Arena, et al., 2022).

This track aims to deepen the understanding of how and under what conditions IEs act as catalysts for sustainable and socially-oriented technological innovation. We invite contributions that investigate, among others, the following themes:
• Anticipatory nature of IEs: Does ecosystemic innovation represent a form of anticipation of the trajectories and impacts of technological innovation?
• Complexity–impact trade-offs: Which trade-offs emerge between the impacts generated and the complexity characterising IEs? How to manage the complexity of IEs for the sake of value generation?
• Inter-ecosystem collaboration: How do networks of ecosystems interact to generate and diffuse sustainable and socially-oriented technological innovation? What value is generated by this interaction?
• Transformative social IEs: How do transformative social IEs differ from other types of IEs? Which is the role of different actors in transformative social IEs?
• Role of social economy actors in IEs: Which role do social economy actors play in IEs? How to strengthen their participation and impact in directing innovation towards them?
• Impact measurement and monitoring: How can the sustainable value created by IEs be assessed, monitored and managed over time?
• Longitudinal perspectives on the role of IEs in sustainability transitions: What roles do IEs play in enabling sustainable technological transitions?
• Circular ecosystems: How do IEs support circular business models and technologies?
• Orchestration and governance: Which kind of inter-organizational structures and coordination mechanisms can be put in place to govern socially-oriented IEs? Which is the role of context and institutions in shaping diverse orchestration dynamics?

We welcome studies adopting both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, as well as mixed methods (e.g. case study analysis, action research, network analysis, surveys, statistical analysis, agent-based modelling). Also, we welcome both empirical studies and more conceptual ones.