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The 13 methods featured are: Accelerator programmes Anticipatory regulation Challenge prizes Crowdfunding Experimentation Futures Impact investment Innovation mapping People Powered Results: the 100 day challenge Prototyping Public and social innovation labs Scaling grants for social innovations Standards of Evidence

This study attempts to extend the definition of social innovation within the context of academic entrepreneurship. We consider how academic entrepreneurs can undertake commercial activities, and which ones, and how these activities contribute to the contexts of social innovation. We explore two cases that are derived from two premier universities in Taiwan in terms of research and academic entrepreneurship: OurCityLove from National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) and the Forest app from National Tsing Hua University (NTHU). The two cases show how social enterprises achieved the financial ability to expand their businesses and create the desired social values. While the first case, derived from NCTU, focused on providing useful information on social spaces, and services for the elderly, parents traveling with babies and those with disabilities (and also creating job opportunities for the latter), the other from NTHU created an app to influence those addicted to playing with their smartphones. The cases illustrate how the two universities capitalised on their technological competencies and academic programmes to support graduates and researchers in venturing into social entrepreneurship.

This study attempts to extend the definition of social innovation within the context of academic entrepreneurship. We consider how academic entrepreneurs can undertake commercial activities, and which ones, and how these activities contribute to the contexts of social innovation. We explore two cases that are derived from two premier universities in Taiwan in terms of research and academic entrepreneurship: OurCityLove from National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) and the Forest app from National Tsing Hua University (NTHU). The two cases show how social enterprises achieved the financial ability to expand their businesses and create the desired social values. While the first case, derived from NCTU, focused on providing useful information on social spaces, and services for the elderly, parents traveling with babies and those with disabilities (and also creating job opportunities for the latter), the other from NTHU created an app to influence those addicted to playing with their smartphones. The cases illustrate how the two universities capitalised on their technological competencies and academic programmes to support graduates and researchers in venturing into social entrepreneurship.

There has been limited study on the role of the startup ecosystem in social entrepreneurship. This article addresses the gap by applying a theoretical framework of startup ecosystem to two social enterprises originating from a Singapore university, examining how they engage with stakeholders to create social impact. WateRoam Pte Ltd is a water innovation startup that deploys cost-effective water filtration solutions to rural communities and disaster-hit locations. Tware is a wearable technology startup with a range of therapeutic products for individuals with autism, stress or anxiety. The two cases provide insights on the ecosystem for social ventures in Singapore. The Finance domain is identified as a potential area of improvement, as there is uncertainty on the appropriate growth trajectory for funding. University incubation and mentor networks are found to be pivotal in extending the Markets domain. Finally, this study highlights the Supports domain in the form of university R&D facilities and accelerator programmes that have been instrumental in strengthening connections. Extending beyond the university context, it is evident that infrastructural resources in the ecosystem are crucial. Policymakers may draw on the experience of countries, like Israel, which have successfully built such support facilities to nurture innovation-based social enterprises.

There has been limited study on the role of the startup ecosystem in social entrepreneurship. This article addresses the gap by applying a theoretical framework of startup ecosystem to two social enterprises originating from a Singapore university, examining how they engage with stakeholders to create social impact. WateRoam Pte Ltd is a water innovation startup that deploys cost-effective water filtration solutions to rural communities and disaster-hit locations. Tware is a wearable technology startup with a range of therapeutic products for individuals with autism, stress or anxiety. The two cases provide insights on the ecosystem for social ventures in Singapore. The Finance domain is identified as a potential area of improvement, as there is uncertainty on the appropriate growth trajectory for funding. University incubation and mentor networks are found to be pivotal in extending the Markets domain. Finally, this study highlights the Supports domain in the form of university R&D facilities and accelerator programmes that have been instrumental in strengthening connections. Extending beyond the university context, it is evident that infrastructural resources in the ecosystem are crucial. Policymakers may draw on the experience of countries, like Israel, which have successfully built such support facilities to nurture innovation-based social enterprises.

A social innovation ecosystem is a set of actors from different societal sectors and their environments with legal and cultural norms, supportive infrastructures and many other elements, which enable or inhibit the development of social innovations. In this context, several issues regarding information reuse and integration can be found. In this paper, we present an observational study where a real case of an emerging social innovation ecosystem was modeled and analyzed in order to identify the challenges faced by the actors. Results show the importance of adopting digital ecosystem concepts for an approach in which social innovation actors interact and collaborate through the support provided by a common technological platform, composing what we called as Social Innovation Digital Ecosystem (SIDE). Such approach aims to support social innovation actors towards fostering collaboration, co-creation, knowledge, and information sharing and reuse, enabling the development, dissemination and generation of more effective social innovations.

Equity-Centered Community Design, created by Creative Reaction Lab, is a unique creative problem solving process based on equity, humility-building, integrating history and healing practices, addressing power dynamics, and co-creating with the community. This design process focuses on a community’s culture and needs so that they can gain tools to dismantle systemic oppression and create a future with equity for all. Creative Reaction Lab’s goal is to share equity-centered design to achieve sustained community health, economic opportunities, and social and cultural solidarity for all.

Equity-Centered Community Design, created by Creative Reaction Lab, is a unique creative problem solving process based on equity, humility-building, integrating history and healing practices, addressing power dynamics, and co-creating with the community. This design process focuses on a community’s culture and needs so that they can gain tools to dismantle systemic oppression and create a future with equity for all. Creative Reaction Lab’s goal is to share equity-centered design to achieve sustained community health, economic opportunities, and social and cultural solidarity for all.

Equity-Centered Community Design, created by Creative Reaction Lab, is a unique creative problem solving process based on equity, humility-building, integrating history and healing practices, addressing power dynamics, and co-creating with the community. This design process focuses on a community’s culture and needs so that they can gain tools to dismantle systemic oppression and create a future with equity for all. Creative Reaction Lab’s goal is to share equity-centered design to achieve sustained community health, economic opportunities, and social and cultural solidarity for all.

Equity-Centered Community Design, created by Creative Reaction Lab, is a unique creative problem solving process based on equity, humility-building, integrating history and healing practices, addressing power dynamics, and co-creating with the community. This design process focuses on a community’s culture and needs so that they can gain tools to dismantle systemic oppression and create a future with equity for all. Creative Reaction Lab’s goal is to share equity-centered design to achieve sustained community health, economic opportunities, and social and cultural solidarity for all.

Equity-Centered Community Design, created by Creative Reaction Lab, is a unique creative problem solving process based on equity, humility-building, integrating history and healing practices, addressing power dynamics, and co-creating with the community. This design process focuses on a community’s culture and needs so that they can gain tools to dismantle systemic oppression and create a future with equity for all. Creative Reaction Lab’s goal is to share equity-centered design to achieve sustained community health, economic opportunities, and social and cultural solidarity for all.

Equity-Centered Community Design, created by Creative Reaction Lab, is a unique creative problem solving process based on equity, humility-building, integrating history and healing practices, addressing power dynamics, and co-creating with the community. This design process focuses on a community’s culture and needs so that they can gain tools to dismantle systemic oppression and create a future with equity for all. Creative Reaction Lab’s goal is to share equity-centered design to achieve sustained community health, economic opportunities, and social and cultural solidarity for all.

Technological innovation is the new backbone for companies. Exploiting and exploring new knowledge increase the chance of survival in the current dynamic market. Alongside, there are countries were be an innovative need to face up social and political challenges. This has transformed their economy, spreading an entrepreneurial mindset mingled with the willing to help a local community. This phenomenon is called social entrepreneurship which is leveraging new economies and building wealth, environmental system. In this vein, the present research seeks to offer qualitative research on 142 social entrepreneurs in an emerging country. The scope is to analyse if social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial characteristics, and entrepreneurial ecosystem influence innovation. As emerged, technological innovation is affected by the first two factors but the entrepreneurial ecosystem is still not supportive. New, several activities should be organised by the government to assist entrepreneurs, whereas, the entrepreneurs are socially motivated to build up his enterprise.

Technological innovation is the new backbone for companies. Exploiting and exploring new knowledge increase the chance of survival in the current dynamic market. Alongside, there are countries were be an innovative need to face up social and political challenges. This has transformed their economy, spreading an entrepreneurial mindset mingled with the willing to help a local community. This phenomenon is called social entrepreneurship which is leveraging new economies and building wealth, environmental system. In this vein, the present research seeks to offer qualitative research on 142 social entrepreneurs in an emerging country. The scope is to analyse if social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial characteristics, and entrepreneurial ecosystem influence innovation. As emerged, technological innovation is affected by the first two factors but the entrepreneurial ecosystem is still not supportive. New, several activities should be organised by the government to assist entrepreneurs, whereas, the entrepreneurs are socially motivated to build up his enterprise.

Innovation challenges are increasingly complex, cutting across distributed actors from different disciplines, organizations, and fields. Solving such challenges requires creating the capacities of opening up for innovation to access and develop a greater amount and variety of knowledge and resources. Perspectives on open source, open innovation, and interorganizational collaboration have explored such capacities, but from different origins and scopes of analysis. Our practice-based integrative framework of “opening innovation” helps highlight these differences and connect their relative strengths. Through a critical literature review paired with an analysis of different empirical cases from Hacking Health, a non-profit organization helping drive digital health innovation, the authors reveal the user-centric, firm-centric, and field-centric approaches to opening innovation that progressively connect a greater variety of actors and resources. The authors show how specific new relational practices they produce address the new relational dynamics these connections bring to accumulate more resources for innovation to keep progressing.

Some see universities as a possible source of solutions to enable a sustainable transition and overcome societal challenges. Findings from three multisite case studies of Desis Labs, FabLabs, and Science Shops shed light on how universities can help empower communities and solve societal challenges locally. Adopting a sociotechnical and flat relational perspective inspired by science and technology studies (STS), we focus on the material and spatial aspects of how these spaces are configured, thereby ensuring practical relevance for policy makers and practitioners. Applying an analytical generalization methodology, we condense the qualitative data into a typology of three ideal space-types (i.e. affording, mediating, and impact-oriented) that represent specific configurations of actors, researchers, students, communities, spaces, infrastructure, equipment, facilitators, etc. The ideal space-types empower communities in different ways, require different resources to create and operate, and translate differently into specific local contexts.

Some see universities as a possible source of solutions to enable a sustainable transition and overcome societal challenges. Findings from three multisite case studies of Desis Labs, FabLabs, and Science Shops shed light on how universities can help empower communities and solve societal challenges locally. Adopting a sociotechnical and flat relational perspective inspired by science and technology studies (STS), we focus on the material and spatial aspects of how these spaces are configured, thereby ensuring practical relevance for policy makers and practitioners. Applying an analytical generalization methodology, we condense the qualitative data into a typology of three ideal space-types (i.e. affording, mediating, and impact-oriented) that represent specific configurations of actors, researchers, students, communities, spaces, infrastructure, equipment, facilitators, etc. The ideal space-types empower communities in different ways, require different resources to create and operate, and translate differently into specific local contexts.

Dans un contexte de multiplication des expériences innovatrices, le présent ouvrage veut faire reconnaître les pratiques émergentes comme étant valables et justes, et montrer leur capacité à transformer le monde. Ainsi, les auteurs prônent le passage d’une vision minimaliste de l’innovation sociale, selon laquelle les acteurs sociaux et communautaires agissent de manière à pallier l’« austéritarisme » gouvernemental et les insuffisances provoquées par le marché, à une approche plus large, orientée vers une véritable transformation sociale, économique et territoriale. Cette approche rappelle que les objectifs du développement économique doivent être soumis aux impératifs sociétaux et environnementaux. Ainsi, lutter pour faire reconnaître le pouvoir de la société civile de réinventer le monde, c’est réagir au déni de l’alternative, si présent dans le discours des décideurs. C’est aussi donner à voir des initiatives peu valorisées par ces discours, parce qu’elles ne s’inscrivent pas dans leur logique économique, laquelle est essentiellement productiviste et destructrice. Penser la transition, c’est réimaginer des institutions et des pratiques capables d’accroître la capacité des collectivités à favoriser le bien commun. C’est affirmer qu’une société créative et innovatrice devrait adhérer à une vision large de l’innovation, orientée vers le développement économique, mais aussi vers la création d’un écosystème d’innovation où les progrès technologiques et sociaux se croisent et se complètent, écosystème qui devrait repenser les rapports inégalitaires entre les genres, les populations et les territoires.

Stanford is a quintessential entrepreneurial university, encouraging firm formation from existing knowledge that the university aggregates as well as new knowledge that it creates. Its founders implanted an academic institution, with scholarly and entrepreneurial ambitions, on a ranch where cattle still graze in the upper campus. In contrast to MIT's founding role in Boston, infusing new technology into an old industrial region's firms, Stanford assisted industrial development in an agricultural region and its industrial interlocutors raised the technical level of the university in mutually beneficial symbiosis (Lecuyer, 2007). The theory and practice of how to “make over” a university into an entrepreneurial actor has come to the forefront of academic and policy attention, internationally, with the European Union sponsoring development of the U-Multirank tool that includes the phenomenon (Van Vught and Ziegele, 2012) and a Brazilian post-graduate student project part of the ITHI Global Entrepreneurial University Metrics (GEUM) initiative that produced a dedicated entrepreneurial university metric (Nerves and Mancos, 2016). As an academic institution propelled to the forefront of global rankings (O'Malley, 2018), while helping create the world's leading high-tech region, Stanford University is in a radically different position from its late 19th century developing region origins. Should Stanford respond to dramatic shift in status and fortune by reverting to an Ivory Tower mode in response to critics who label it “Get Rich U.” (Auletta, 2012)? Or, should it double down on its entrepreneurial heritage and forge more extensive ties to Silicon Valley and other innovation hubs? In 2011, then Stanford President John Hennessy responded to former New York Mayor Bloomberg's request for proposal (RFP) for a university to establish an entrepreneurial campus. Intrigued by the prospect of engaging with the city's financial, art and media complexes, Stanford invested one million dollars in proposal development but eventually withdrew its bid in the face of faculty opposition to diversion of resources as well as Cornell University's munificent counter-offer in alliance with Israel's Technion (Hennessy, 2018). Instead, Hennessy inaugurated a program with an altruistic bent, funding international scholars who will, after pursuing advanced degrees at Stanford, “drive progress for humanity rather than for a select few.” Doubtless, these nascent social entrepreneurs will internalize Silicon Valley's optimistic ideology. Success, as well as entrepreneurial exuberance, creates blinders that suppress disconcerting events, at least temporarily. In the late 00's, generating 7–9 start-ups per annum, the highest rate of any university, Stanford ignored flaws in its technology transfer process that inhibited greater attainment. The research question generated may be stated as follows: how is a hidden innovation gap recognized and resolved? An attitude of, “if it's not broken don't fix it” had taken hold rather than the converse “If it's working well make it better.” Inventions that were too early-stage to be licensed and required translational research or a start-up, languished. The first author faced a dilemma in presenting such less than stellar results from a 2005 study of Stanford's Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) to the Dean of Research, its sponsor: how could such an analysis be taken seriously in the face of overweening achievement? The Dean's response was that, “OTL is not on our radar, they make more money each year.” Nevertheless, neophyte academic entrepreneurs had independently come to a similar conclusion as ours and were impelled to act. Their initiatives are the subject matter of this article. Skeptical of Stanford's relevance to aspiring universities, Jacob et al. (2003) hold that, “The reality of building an entrepreneurial university… is an arduous task for which there is no blueprint.” Yet, a potentially replicable organizational design may be discerned by changing the focal point from Silicon Valley's efflorescence to Stanford's entrepreneurial dynamic. The article proceeds as follows. Section 2 outlines a theoretical framework for the entrepreneurial university and reviews its literature. Section 3 presents a research design to investigate the “paradox of success,” its causes and cures. Section 4 presents a series of initiatives instituted to enhance the Stanford Innovation System. Section 5 formulates an organizational change thesis, linking design thinking to Institution Formation Sociology and social with technological innovation. Section 6 proposes policy measures to improve the Stanford Innovation System in particular and the entrepreneurial university model, in general. Finally, Section 6 sums up research insights, notes study limitations and outlines future research.

Stanford is a quintessential entrepreneurial university, encouraging firm formation from existing knowledge that the university aggregates as well as new knowledge that it creates. Its founders implanted an academic institution, with scholarly and entrepreneurial ambitions, on a ranch where cattle still graze in the upper campus. In contrast to MIT's founding role in Boston, infusing new technology into an old industrial region's firms, Stanford assisted industrial development in an agricultural region and its industrial interlocutors raised the technical level of the university in mutually beneficial symbiosis (Lecuyer, 2007). The theory and practice of how to “make over” a university into an entrepreneurial actor has come to the forefront of academic and policy attention, internationally, with the European Union sponsoring development of the U-Multirank tool that includes the phenomenon (Van Vught and Ziegele, 2012) and a Brazilian post-graduate student project part of the ITHI Global Entrepreneurial University Metrics (GEUM) initiative that produced a dedicated entrepreneurial university metric (Nerves and Mancos, 2016). As an academic institution propelled to the forefront of global rankings (O'Malley, 2018), while helping create the world's leading high-tech region, Stanford University is in a radically different position from its late 19th century developing region origins. Should Stanford respond to dramatic shift in status and fortune by reverting to an Ivory Tower mode in response to critics who label it “Get Rich U.” (Auletta, 2012)? Or, should it double down on its entrepreneurial heritage and forge more extensive ties to Silicon Valley and other innovation hubs? In 2011, then Stanford President John Hennessy responded to former New York Mayor Bloomberg's request for proposal (RFP) for a university to establish an entrepreneurial campus. Intrigued by the prospect of engaging with the city's financial, art and media complexes, Stanford invested one million dollars in proposal development but eventually withdrew its bid in the face of faculty opposition to diversion of resources as well as Cornell University's munificent counter-offer in alliance with Israel's Technion (Hennessy, 2018). Instead, Hennessy inaugurated a program with an altruistic bent, funding international scholars who will, after pursuing advanced degrees at Stanford, “drive progress for humanity rather than for a select few.” Doubtless, these nascent social entrepreneurs will internalize Silicon Valley's optimistic ideology. Success, as well as entrepreneurial exuberance, creates blinders that suppress disconcerting events, at least temporarily. In the late 00's, generating 7–9 start-ups per annum, the highest rate of any university, Stanford ignored flaws in its technology transfer process that inhibited greater attainment. The research question generated may be stated as follows: how is a hidden innovation gap recognized and resolved? An attitude of, “if it's not broken don't fix it” had taken hold rather than the converse “If it's working well make it better.” Inventions that were too early-stage to be licensed and required translational research or a start-up, languished. The first author faced a dilemma in presenting such less than stellar results from a 2005 study of Stanford's Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) to the Dean of Research, its sponsor: how could such an analysis be taken seriously in the face of overweening achievement? The Dean's response was that, “OTL is not on our radar, they make more money each year.” Nevertheless, neophyte academic entrepreneurs had independently come to a similar conclusion as ours and were impelled to act. Their initiatives are the subject matter of this article. Skeptical of Stanford's relevance to aspiring universities, Jacob et al. (2003) hold that, “The reality of building an entrepreneurial university… is an arduous task for which there is no blueprint.” Yet, a potentially replicable organizational design may be discerned by changing the focal point from Silicon Valley's efflorescence to Stanford's entrepreneurial dynamic. The article proceeds as follows. Section 2 outlines a theoretical framework for the entrepreneurial university and reviews its literature. Section 3 presents a research design to investigate the “paradox of success,” its causes and cures. Section 4 presents a series of initiatives instituted to enhance the Stanford Innovation System. Section 5 formulates an organizational change thesis, linking design thinking to Institution Formation Sociology and social with technological innovation. Section 6 proposes policy measures to improve the Stanford Innovation System in particular and the entrepreneurial university model, in general. Finally, Section 6 sums up research insights, notes study limitations and outlines future research.