Votre recherche

The importance of knowledge co-creation – the joint production of innovation between industry, research and possibly other stakeholders, such as civil society – has been increasingly acknowledged. This paper builds on 13 cross-country case studies and co-creation experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic to characterise the diversity of knowledge co-creation initiatives and identify lessons for policy. The paper identifies a strong rationale for policy to support knowledge co-creation because the benefits of successful co-creation initiatives outweigh the initial co-ordination costs. Moreover, knowledge co-creation initiatives can contribute to democratising innovation. Successful initiatives engage all stakeholders and have effective governance and management structures. They also have clearly defined ownership and use rights of the collaborations’ outcomes and benefit from favourable conditions to operate, including temporary staff mobility and institutional set-ups that facilitate collaboration and effective communication among participants.

Local energy policy agendas require commonly defined desirable future visions and collective agenda-setting to spur collaborative action. However, methods designed for multi-stakeholder engagement often do not sufficiently open up deliberative processes to all voices, and efforts to envision desired futures built from current local energy challenges are usually designed by and oriented towards specialists. With this paper, we aimed to explore how the theoretical strengths of storytelling for supporting local policy processes play out in practice. We contrast what the literature states about the potential of storytelling for solving complex challenges and facilitating collaborative processes to the lessons learnt from actually using storytelling in a set of 17 multi-stakeholder workshops across 17 European countries run as part of the H2020 SHAPE ENERGY project. The workshops were each designed around a tangible local energy policy challenge. We found storytelling has unique strengths in terms of enabling significant (un)learning regarding stakeholder relationships, allowing participants to step into others’ perspectives, keeping hold of diversity, and the use of ‘we’ in stories leading to concrete future initiatives. We also note specific learnings about when these outcomes may not be achieved, for example due to fears, traditions, hierarchical structures, as well as the need for sufficient time for planning, facilitator training and stakeholder invitations. We conclude that as an innovative, playful and flexible methodology, storytelling can undoubtedly be a valuable additional tool for policymakers where there is a desire for deliberative stakeholder involvement, and appetite to tailor approaches to local contexts.

Quelles sont les conditions de la maximisation de l’impact, et notamment sa pérennisation, du mécénat de compétence tech au profit des organisations dont la mission relève directement et prioritairement de la gestion du bien commun au service de l’intérêt général ? Telle est la question de recherche que la Fondation Devoteam a posée à l’ESSEC au moment de la mise en place de son programme #TechFor-People, afin de s’assurer de la pertinence de ce programme pour répondre aux besoins sur le long terme des structures de l’ESS (Économie Sociale et Solidaire) en transformation digitale. Afin de répondre à cette problématique l’ESSEC a réalisé une évaluation d’impact social fondée sur les cadres théoriques de la théorie du changement et de la théorie des parties prenantes, avec l’analyse de besoin, une collecte de données qualitatives ex-ante ainsi qu’une collecte de données quantitative ex-ante et ex-post. L’analyse de ces collectes révèle une dichotomie spécifique aux structures de l’ESS utilisant le programme que nous avons catégorisées en Tech Driven d’une part, ou Tech Powered d’autre part, avec des besoins et des conditions de pérennisation spécifiques en fonction de la catégorie qui leur correspond.

Social innovation has been increasingly regarded as an instrument through which transformative structural change, necessary to address grand societal challenges can be achieved. Social innovations are encouraged by the emergence of innovation systems that support changes not exclusively driven by a techno-economic rationality. In the context of this special issue, there has been both little understanding of social innovation systems within mainstream innovation ecosystem approaches and little analysis of the roles played by universities in social innovation systems. We here focus on the institutional complexity of universities and their field-level dynamics as serving as a potential break on the institutionalisation of social innovation. To deepen our understanding of this, we utilise a literature around institutional logics to foreground characteristics of organisational fields with regard to social innovation. Drawing on empirical data gathered in two public universities located in different countries, we show that in one case the potential of social innovation is undermined by two dominant institutional logics, in the other its permeation across the organisational field is seriously challenged by a more powerful dominant logic. The institutional logic approach is useful to highlighting the barriers to building productive innovation ecosystems incorporating social considerations, and helps to explain the persistent difficulties in reframing ecosystems approaches to reflect wider societal dynamics.

Reviews the social role of universities in the urban context Covers themes and models of major interest Explains how to ensure a legacy of grassroots initiatives

Discusses the measurement of innovation and the use of the resulting indicators to shape policy, exploring whether innovation can be measured everywhere, not just in the business sector, in a rapidly changing world. Reviews systems, innovation, and innovation policy. Details current innovation policies. Describes scoreboards and their use for monitoring existing innovation policy. Focuses on the implementation of innovation policy. Presents the general definition of innovation applicable in all economic sectors and considers the importance of language in the innovation discourse. Provides the conceptual framework for the specification of the statistical measurement of innovation. Addresses non-sector-specific innovation in the informal economy, green economy, social innovation, and innovation resulting from the use of general-purpose technologies. Examines global challenges for innovation such as sustainability restrictions. Considers the future of innovation in the digital economy, informal economy, and social innovation. Gault is Professorial Fellow at UNU-MERIT, Professor Extraordinary at Tshwane University of Technology, and Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg. Index.

Recent studies regarding Social Innovation (SI) represent a small percentage of the academic research, and as a consequence the methodologies, focuses, and practices about this topic have not been consolidated. The social innovations generate intangible benefits, mainly qualitative, which makes it difficult to evaluate, even though few authors have indicated the distinguishable characteristics of SI there is not consensus about how to measure it. This document presents the results of a research project with the main objective of identifying the criteria distinguishing SI, and to propose a tool to facilitate its measurement, tracing, and potential assessment. A systematic criteria revision was performed along with a comparative study of eight SI projects from Latin America, prioritizing such criteria. With this information a proposal was developed, including the criteria, associated questions and ponderations. In order to validate the utility of this tool, the evaluation of the project "Implementation of a Solar-Eolic hybrid system in a school in remoted and insolated areas" was performed. The evaluation process allowed to inquire and discover the weaknesses and to explore the limiting causes for every criterion, giving place for recommendations directed to the developers and beneficiaries of the project. Throughout this tool it can be determined whether a project can be considered a successful SI or not; in case of not being successful, the method exerts a simple view of the characteristics that need improvement.

La mesure de l’impact social est devenue un sujet majeur dans le débat relatif au financement de l’innovation sociale. Plusieurs rapports de référence ont été publiés dans ce sens. Ces travaux récents, en s’inscrivant tous dans le cadre logique de la gestion axée sur les résultats (GAR), également appelée « théorie du changement », renouvellent la construction d’une relation problématique : le lien causal et la mesure de sa preuve. À partir d’une approche institutionnaliste de l’innovation sociale, cet article expose les impasses de la GAR dans l’évaluation des innovations sociales et souligne que d’autres voies sont possibles. Les auteurs proposent ainsi de placer l’aspiration sociale au cœur du processus d’évaluation.

This work compares in a comparative way some advances in the promotion and management of Social Innovation adopted by four Latin American countries, including Panama, in order to generate more knowledge to promote the strengthening and design of new public policies in this ambit. Panama is in the incipient stage of Social Innovation management, compared to the other three countries analyzed: Colombia, Costa Rica and Chile. Among the structural elements addressed are: regulations, the degree of institutionality, mechanisms and incentives to promote social innovation projects and good institutionalized practices. Since 2014, Panama shows its interest and advances in the subject, in the academic and university academic sectors, which can take advantage of social innovation to obtain a greater impact in the country and promote a more inclusive social development. Colombia began efforts to promote Social Innovation in 2007, Chile and Costa Rica in 2014, as well as Panama. These three countries have a higher level of progress in the elements analyzed in their Social Innovation ecosystems than Panama, however, they do not have enough mechanisms to clearly identify the failures that prevent the strengthening of the culture of social innovation and, therefore, the establishment of much more effective public policies.

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.

This chapter is about evidence and whether we can, or should, know our impact, the effect we have in the world. It addresses the difficulties as well as the possibilities of evidence for innovators and politicians, civil servants and head teachers, charities and doctors. I also touch on the question at the level of daily life, the moral question of whether we help those around us to be healthier, happier and more prosperous. Knowing our own impacts is, I argue, as much a moral prerogative as the traditional philosophical injunction of knowing ourselves.The enlightenment storyMany of us imbibed from an early age what can be called the enlightenment story. In this story new knowledge is steadily accumulated, mainly in universities and from academic journals. Theories are invented, tested, refuted and then improved. Scepticism helps to refine them and, as Wittgenstein wrote, the child first learns belief and only then learns doubt. You could say that at school we learn knowledge, and then at university we learn to question that knowledge.Belief is strengthened precisely because it has already been knocked down. And so, accumulating knowledge shows that this medicine, that economic policy or this teaching method works and many others don’t. The successful method then spreads, because when you design a better mousetrap the world beats a path to your door. It spreads because people are rational and want to do better and are persuaded by evidence. And so, the world progresses. Light replaces darkness. Effective solutions displace failed ones.It's easy to mock the enlightenment story. The sociologists of science have shown a much messier pattern of change – full of barriers, wilful resistance and peer pressure. But the old enlightenment story contains a good deal of truth and is preferable to the alternatives. Because of intense pressures to act on evidence, and habits of doubt among maintenance staff and engineers, aircraft do not drop out of the sky. Smoking made the slow progress from evidence of harm, through taxes and warnings to full-scale bans, and millions of lives were saved.Experimental methods have been used for many decades.

In the kingdom of ends everything has either a price or a dignity. What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what on the other hand is raised above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity.One of the fascinating features of the history of science is how often new ways of seeing preceded new insights. The achromatic-lens microscope in the early 19th century paved the way for germ theory, and X-ray crystallography in the early 20th century played a vital role in the later discovery of the structure of DNA. In the same way flows of data – for example, about how people move around a city, or how blood cells change – can prompt new insights.But how important is measurement to social change? Many people are attracted to metrics and indices of all kinds. But, as my colleague Mark Moore used to warn, ‘do you really think the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were counting the placards or measuring the decibels of their cries for human rights?’ In social change, as in our own daily lives, measurement often feels inappropriate for the things that matter most.This chapter examines some of the history of social observation as a tool for public policy, social innovation and social change, and I suggest where it might lead in the future. Without some means of measurement, it can be hard to know if a social innovation is good. It may feel good to the beneficiaries – but still be less effective than an alternative. Or it may work well for one group but not another. And, even if it may not be appropriate to measure the passions of movements, once these ideas become part of the mainstream, and are transformed into the cool logic of laws, regulations and programmes, measurements do start to matter a lot, as the Civil Rights Movement discovered.A short history of measurementFor centuries, governments have sought to map and measure social phenomena in order to better exercise control over them. In the modern era these attempts can be traced back to figures like Sir William Petty in England and the cameralists in Prussia.

In the business ethics literature, the growing interest in social entrepreneurship has remained limited to the assumption that pursuing a social mission will clash against the pursuit of associated economic achievements. This ignores recent developments in the social entrepreneurship literature which show that social missions and economic achievement can also have a mutually constitutive relation. We address this gap adopting the notion of shared value (SV) for an ethical inquiry of social entrepreneurship. Using a sensemaking framework, we assume that the emergence of SV propositions can be captured through the analysis of how social entrepreneurs make sense of events of change, selecting the journey of three exemplar cases for an inductive empirical inquiry. From our findings, we propose three themes for further examination. First, the ethical groundings of entrepreneurial SV are mostly shaped by idiosyncratic imperatives that inform both social mission and economic gain from the onset. Second, the ethical groundings of entrepreneurial SV will be likely operationalised as a filtering device, which allows for resilience as well as potentially detrimental blind spots. And third, the ethical groundings of entrepreneurial SV are expressed through ongoing transparency. Whilst there are agendas, these are not necessarily hidden but instead are likely put on show for the scrutiny of markets and communities. We hope that this evidence can add more light to our still modest understanding of the ethical groundings of social entrepreneurship.

This chapter shows that there is a possibility of fostering an enabling and innovative multistakeholder partnership for creating sustainable impact and transformative change with local communities. It argues that the collaborative efforts among district administration, educational institutions and civil society groups in supporting innovation and entrepreneurship can play an extremely important role in livelihood security and empowerment of marginalized sections. The chapter outlines the transformation of a marginalized and underdeveloped district of India. It presents a background of the district with a focus on farmers’ distress and discusses the mode of organization of elites and marginalized peoples under welfare and neoliberal regimes. The chapter also outlines the impact that state–university engagement on the communities. The neoliberal regime made the elite-based cooperatives ineffective, as they came under mismanagement and overexploitation by those in power. Neoliberal reform introduced a new vulnerability among Indian farmers, especially in certain states, such as Maharashtra.

This study seeks to understand the nature and process of social innovation driven by mature social economy enterprises, and the innovative capability that supports it. The research examines enterprise capabilities by means of the institutional approach to social innovation and the Resource-Based View theory (RBV). Based on grounded theory, this research focuses on a single case, the creation of the Desjardins Environment Fund (DEF). Launched 25 years ago,1 DEF is the first mutual fund in North America to include extra-financial criteria in its evaluation of business environmental management practices (fund securities) for the information of individual investors. The findings of this empirical research show how a major cooperative bank can generate social innovation and how this entails organizational innovations. The findings also reveal how these innovations benefit from the strategic and process resources that the Desjardins Movement managed to develop while taking into account both its core business (as a bank) and its purpose (as a cooperative). This study shows that the innovative potential of the mature social economy enterprise should not be underestimated.

As an image and location sharing platform, Instagram offers intimate visual access to events, experiences and situations in a manner that is mobile and contextual. Partnering with Australian Red Cross, this paper develops a mixed methodology for using Instagram data to identify and understand individuals’ everyday humanitarian activity in a major urban centre (Melbourne, Australia) outside of the temporal frame of crisis. The research integrates hashtag data collection with thematic analysis in a Geographic Information System (GIS) to use visualise the links between types of humanitarian action, their motivations and contextual situations to precise urban locations. These attributes of Instagram posting practices offer a base layer of information about disparate prosocial action taking place in an urban context. We see this as informing and sustaining a new hybrid mode of promotional and humanitarian communication, evidencing social good ‘place making’ and enabling new forms of visible humanitarian participation.

Stories of community resilience and rapid innovation have emerged during the global pandemic caused by COVID-19. As communities, organizations, and individuals have had to shift modalities during the pandemic, they have identified ways to sustain community well-being. Prior to COVID-19, colleges and universities were hailed as anchors of economic and social resilience and well-being for communities of place. In this light, this commentary highlights stories of rapid community innovation occurring at Hobart & William Smith Colleges in the Finger Lakes region of New York. A series of vignettes are presented showcasing lessons and on-going questions regarding rapid pivots, community values, and diversity and inclusion during (and after) the pandemic. Overall, these insights can inform future local collaborative development efforts post-COVID-19 between colleges/universities and their local community.

Whereas the economic impact of universities is undisputed, the social impact of universities remains vague. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how universities influence firms’ social engagement. Based on survey data of more than 7,000 German firms, our results reveal that universities positively affect firms’ social engagement mainly through teaching activities. Hence, our findings give impetus to a reinforcement of the university mission ‘teaching’ as a central lever for social change and increased social awareness as well as to a reorientation of the third university mission toward social needs. This paper thereby contributes to our understanding of the changing missions and values of universities and adds to the literature by exploring the underlying mechanisms of the social impact of universities. We conclude the paper with fruitful future avenues of research.