Gender equality and innovation - towards sustainable development and social innovation using the example of activities undertaken by the European Union

The main research problem of the article is to present arguments relating to the growing importance of the concept of sustainable development and social innovation for which social order and gender equality are of key importance. Such identification of the concept of sustainable socio-economic development with social order and gender equality in the creation of contemporary innovations can be identified in a scientific perspective with the functional theory of social change by A.R. Redcliffe-Brown, B. Malinowski. On the other hand, in practical terms, with all types of activities, strategies or programs undertaken and implemented in the pragmatics of European Union activities (eg. the EC Program "A Union that strives for more", the Ljubljana Declaration, the Horizon Europe Program, including Women Tech EU). The article uses both traditional research methods as a middle-order system analysis and institutional-legal method, as well as new methods, including sociological neoinstitutionalism, and networks. The research techniques used in the analysis are mainly quantitative techniques, ie. desk research or analysis of the content of existing data, such as She Figures, GEM, Statista.com.