The article focuses on the role of stakeholder involvement in social innovation research, exploring the reasons, strategies and difficulties associated with the dialogue between researchers and stakeholders. More than an original research article, it has the modest ambition of making a contribution to the current debate on the role of stakeholders in social research, based on the approach and results to date of an ongoing research project on the integration of migrant children, CHILD-UP, funded by the EU Horizon 2020 Programme in the period 2019–2022. In contrast to major contributions that focus on the relationship between researchers and policymakers, this article refers to many different categories of stakeholders, some of which are only active at the level of grassroots practice. Rather than focusing on the direct relation between researchers and decision makers, CHILD-UP has adopted a broader, predominantly bottom-up approach to how research results can influence current practices and future policies.

After a general introduction referring to mainstream contributions on the subject, the articulated and decentralised approach of the CHILD-UP Project is described and discussed in the central part of the article. The purpose of this part is not to present the project in itself, but to illustrate how the general approach to stakeholder involvement has been translated into structures and activities that are considered an integral part of the research project.

The final sections report results of interviews with project researchers and build on formative evaluation exercises conducted as the project has concluded its first two years of activity. According to these conclusions, the dialogue between researchers and stakeholders, although recognised as necessary and useful, it still has to overcome a number of difficulties of different nature and requires further efforts to produce all its potential benefits.

The article focuses on the role of stakeholder involvement in social innovation research, exploring the reasons, strategies and difficulties associated with the dialogue between researchers and stakeholders. More than an original research article, it has the modest ambition of making a contribution to the current debate on the role of stakeholders in social research, based on the approach and results to date of an ongoing research project on the integration of migrant children, CHILD-UP, funded by the EU Horizon 2020 Programme in the period 2019–2022. In contrast to major contributions that focus on the relationship between researchers and policymakers, this article refers to many different categories of stakeholders, some of which are only active at the level of grassroots practice. Rather than focusing on the direct relation between researchers and decision makers, CHILD-UP has adopted a broader, predominantly bottom-up approach to how research results can influence current practices and future policies.

After a general introduction referring to mainstream contributions on the subject, the articulated and decentralised approach of the CHILD-UP Project is described and discussed in the central part of the article. The purpose of this part is not to present the project in itself, but to illustrate how the general approach to stakeholder involvement has been translated into structures and activities that are considered an integral part of the research project.

The final sections report results of interviews with project researchers and build on formative evaluation exercises conducted as the project has concluded its first two years of activity. According to these conclusions, the dialogue between researchers and stakeholders, although recognised as necessary and useful, it still has to overcome a number of difficulties of different nature and requires further efforts to produce all its potential benefits.