"When determining innovation rates, non-profit organizations are often ranked with a very low and slow innovation rate. The question is, if this fact results from less opportunity for innovation than within the profit sector or within other factors such organizational factors (no systematic screening of opportunities, worse project management, less possibilities of financing innovation etc.) or the fact that the innovation topics are different and need more long-term development. I argue that sources for innovation opportunities do not differ fundamentally and that the difference lies within organizational factors and/or the difference of the topics. Based on the analysis I want to build a systematic screening and evaluation tool for the Austrian Road Safety Board in order to show that by applying the same methods as within profit organizations screening and evaluation of innovation opportunities can be done for non-profit organizations in a very similar way. I choose to focus on this first part (sources of innovation and opportunity recognition) within the innovation process as without this first step innovation never can take place. My master thesis shall show that sources for innovation are there for NPOs and that by analysing them professionally, a bigger proportion of opportunities will be detected and consequently can be put into practice. In the master thesis I would like to find an answer to this question by the following analysis: 1. Potential sources of innovation 1.1. State of the art knowledge within research literature 1.2. Relevance of the sources within the profit sector 1.3. Relevance of the sources within the non-profit sector (differences and commonalities) 2. Systematic screening of sources of innovation 2.1. State of the art knowledge within research literature 2.2. Relevance of the methods within the profit sector 2.3. Relevance of the methods within the non-profit sector (differences and commonalities) 3. Systematic evaluation of sources of innovation 3.1. State of the art knowledge within research literature 3.2. Relevance of the methods within the profit sector 3.3. Relevance of the methods within the non-profit sector (differences and commonalities) 4. Screening Tool for the Austrian Road Safety Board 5. Evaluation Tool for the Austrian Road Safety Board 6. Plan for implementation of the tool within the organization "
