Service Innovations Targeting NEETs: A Systematic Review

Exclusion from education, employment or training is a complex global challenge with major negative consequences for society and the individuals affected. Extant research on the services and interventions for helping individuals belonging to the not in education, employment or training (NEET) target group suggests that there is little evidence to support the efficacy of such services. Therefore, service innovation is needed to find new and better solutions. However, there has been little research on the extent to which service innovation is represented in the NEET literature. This article presents a systematic literature review based on the following question: What are the scope and characteristics of service innovations targeting NEETs in the research literature? The results show that the scope of research-based knowledge about service innovations is limited. Only 27 research articles and chapters matched the basic inclusion criteria of our literature review. The included articles revealed the following three main thematic areas related to the characteristics of service innovations: (1) co-creation in service development and service delivery, (2) new pedagogical approaches and (3) stimulating entrepreneurship activities. The results also show that there is an increasing focus on new forms of cross-sectoral collaboration to find novel ways of helping young people return to education and work. However, despite the importance of focusing on structural causes, most studies emphasise individual-oriented and relationship-building efforts. This article contributes to the literature by providing an overview and description of existing studies that deal with service innovation to meet the NEET challenge.