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Purpose: By taking a micro-level perspective, this paper aims to examine the influence of the ongoing paradigm shift from technological to social innovation on principal investigators (PIs) and thereby links the two emerging research fields of entrepreneurial ecosystems and social innovation. The purpose of this paper is to build the basis for future empirical analyses. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is a conceptual paper and therefore focuses on theoretical considerations. Taking a quadruple helix approach, PIs are outlined as central actors of entrepreneurial ecosystems and transformative agents of the innovation process. Findings: PIs can proactively shape the innovation process and thus the shift from technological to social innovation, through various channels. They can affect all other actors of the quadruple helix, e.g. by exerting influence on the process of scientific change, on the public opinion and/or on the industry partners. Further, the paradigm shift might change the universities' role in the quadruple helix, substantiating their importance in the process of social change. Practical implications: As PIs are influencing all other actors of the quadruple helix, they are central actors of entrepreneurial ecosystems and thus crucial players in the innovation process. Hence, they need to be supported in fulfilling their role of transformative agents, accelerating and shaping the paradigm shift from technological to social innovation. Universities should therefore reconsider their missions and vision as well as their role within the society. Originality/value: This paper considers the influence of an ongoing paradigm shift from technological to social innovation on entrepreneurial ecosystems. This work focuses especially on the PIs' role as transformative agents. Therefore, it builds a bridge from entrepreneurial ecosystems to social innovation and thus contributes to both research fields. Moreover, the paper shows the great potential of PIs to influence and shape social innovation.

This article uses a conceptual approach to propose an innovation model for regional universities. It demonstrates that the traditional university encounters several obstacles that hinder its full integration into the development of its respective region and explains why currently known models cannot adapt to regions that have deficient relationships with the government and lack an entrepreneurial base. The new model is based on a structure composed of units called “innovation hubs” and incorporates social innovation, thus permitting the university to become integrated into the regional innovation ecosystems. The Magdalena University in Colombia was used as a reference in developing the model. Keywords: hub; social innovation; university innovation models; regional innovation ecosystems

L’entreprise ReSanté-Vous est positionnée sur le secteur de la santé, à destination des personnes âgées. Elle a élaboré une proposition de valeur fondée sur l’innovation sociale. L’étude du cas de ce business model permet de discuter des critères permettant de définir un tel métier, et dans quelle mesure les modèles existants sont bien adaptés à ses dimensions sociales et solidaires, ou de création de valeur sociétale. L’exposé du cas débouche sur l’identification d’une série de forces et faiblesses du modèle économique, et la nécessité de mieux appréhender le concept d’impact social.

Interrelations between creativity, innovativeness and entrepreneurial skills of individuals have long been discussed in the literature. Due to the challenges regarding their measurement, most studies focused on the intentions rather than the outcomes. The idea generation that requires creativity is the first stage of social innovation. The young population's creative potentials in participating social innovation practices deserve a special attention as they play a critical role in the innovativeness and entrepreneurship of societies. This study aims to explore the factors that determine the creative intentions of university students that are important in generating social innovation projects. A structured survey based on the literature was conducted among 600 management and engineering students from 3 universities from the different percentiles of the Entrepreneurial and Innovative University Index for 2012 of the Turkish Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology. The survey included questions on the demographic characteristics, environmental factors, motivators, university/institutional context, perceptions and creative thinking attitudes. By conducting reliability and factor analysis, accuracy and validity of data is tested and the impact factors were identified. Findings reveal that visionary attitude, curiosity, exploration and learning, attitude for own creativity, self-esteem, perception about the learnability of creativity, university and social environment are components of creative thinking intentions of students and some of these factors vary by year of study and university.

Social innovation (SI) is a promising concept that has been developed and mobilized in academia, government policies, philanthropic programs, entrepreneurial projects. Scholars propose multiple conceptions and categorization of what is SI (trajectories, approaches, theoretical strands, paradigms, streams). Some recent work has also addressed the question of who is doing SI. In both cases, the what and the who remain the key characteristic of SI. Two approaches are confronted: one where SI is more presented as a concept that reproduces the neoliberal–capitalist societies; a second that conceives SI as a transformative and emancipatory pathway. With this article, I contribute to the possibilities to conceive SI as performative concept. My proposition is to analyze SI as a discourse with precise performative practices and apparatus. By doing so, it allows scholars and practitioners to better reflect and identify the effects, tensions and ambivalence and possibilities of SI. Moreover, it gives us few key aspects of what might constitute an emancipatory social innovation.

Inspired by the South American research tradition known as “social technology,” this article proposes an operational framework to advance the understanding of mechanisms that help to promote social transformation. To illustrate its theorizing potential, we apply the framework to a nonprofit organization–Parole d’excluEs–that was created in Montreal (Canada) in 2006 and that has been promoting citizen mobilization and commitment to social change (parole-dexclues.ca). To that end, we offer a theoretical paper with an empirical illustration as a first step in a reflection on employing a global South theoretical lens–drawing on the concept of social technology–to make sense of a global North social innovation experience and to advance existing knowledge on the mechanisms of social transformation. The results contribute to social innovation research and practice, particularly at the interface between the management and nonprofit literatures.

Purpose In recent decades, higher education institutes (HEIs) have come under pressure to cooperate with society as a whole. This shift towards an increased focus on third mission and social innovation activities implies a substantial organizational change process for many HEIs, as they need to initiate both structural and cultural changes. This paper provides guidance for such change processes by examining the views and attitudes of academic and administrative staff, as well as students within the HEIs over a period in which the HEIs increase their focus on social innovation. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a longitudinal quantitative approach consisting of a survey of administrative and academic staff, as well as students at two German HEIs. The authors studied members' attitudes towards third mission and social innovation activities (N = 3470). Findings Results suggest that the university members' attitudes towards third mission and social innovation are positive but change to some extent over time. Different aspects shape the attitudes within the three groups (administrative staff, academic staff and students). Furthermore, attitudes vary among academic employees who are involved in the process and those who are not. Practical implications The findings provide useful information for university managers and anyone aiming to promote social innovation at HEIs. Originality/value The study examines how attitudes of university members change whenever social innovation takes place at HEIs. This study includes data on the participation and empowerment of all HEI members in view of the important role that HEIs can play as supporters of social innovation.

This chapter considers the role of universities in stimulating social innovation, and in particular the issue that despite possessing substantive knowledge that might be useful for stimulating social innovation, universities to date have not been widely engaged in social innovation activities in the context of Quadruple Helix developmental models. We explain this in terms of the institutional logics of engaged universities, in which entrepreneurial logics have emerged in recent decades, that frame the desirable forms of university-society engagement in terms of the economic benefits they bring. We ask whether institutional logics could explain this resistance of universities to social innovation. Drawing on two case studies of universities sincerely committed to supporting social innovation, we chart the effects of institutional logics on university-supported social innovation. We observe that there is a “missing middle” between enthusiastic managers and engaged professors, in which four factors serve to undermine social innovation activities becoming strategically important to HEIs. We conclude by noting that this missing middle also serves to segment the operation of Quadruple Helix relationships, thereby undermining university contributions to societal development more generally.

L’innovation sociale est largement considérée comme vertueuse. Cependant, le consensus qui semble régner en la matière vient de ce que les représentations et les pratiques englobées sous ce terme recouvrent un faisceau très diversifié d’approches et de réalités. Cette polysémie permet à de nombreux auteurs de se ranger sous une même bannière alors qu’ils ont des références et des orientations distinctes, voire divergentes. L’éloge unanime de l’innovation sociale ne saurait donc faire illusion. À cet égard, un travail introductif autour de l’innovation sociale a mis en évidence deux acceptions contrastées. La première version, qui peut être qualifiée de faible, aménage le système existant, insiste sur l’importance de l’épreuve marchande et valorise l’entreprise privée dans sa capacité à trouver de nouvelles solutions aux problèmes de société. La seconde version, qui peut être désignée comme forte, affiche une visée transformatrice ; elle prône, en réaction à la démesure du capitalisme marchand, une articulation inédite entre pouvoirs publics et société civile pour répondre aux défis écologiques et sociaux. La première se contente d’une amélioration du modèle économique dominant, l’innovation s’inscrivant dans une perspective réparatrice et fonctionnelle, tandis que la seconde a pour caractéristique un questionnement critique de ce modèle, et a pour horizon une démocratisation de la société.

Face à la conception technocratique et entrepreneuriale portée par les pouvoirs publics, une approche alternative de l’innovation sociale, plus populaire et moins visible, à travers l’exploration d’initiatives citoyennes. Prenant comme point de départ le constat d’une appropriation institutionnelle de l’innovation sociale, orientée vers la compétitivité et l’efficacité marchande des expériences de l’économie sociale et solidaire, l’ouvrage vise à la fois à apporter un regard critique sur cette conception de l’innovation sociale et à remettre en lumière des expérimentations citoyennes peu prises en compte par les pouvoirs publics. Il montre ainsi la nécessité d’un tournant épistémologique valorisant les dynamiques de coproduction des savoirs et des politiques entre acteurs, chercheurs et institutions.

Current social innovation initiatives towards societal transformations bring forward new ways of doing and organizing, but new ways of knowing as well. Their efforts towards realizing those are important sites for the investigation of contemporary tensions of expertise. The promotion of new, transformative ways of knowing typically involves a large bandwidth of claims to expertise. The attendant contestation is unfolded through the exemplar case of the Basic Income in which the historically evolved forms of academic political advocacy are increasingly accompanied by a new wave of activism. Crowd-funding initiatives, internet activists, citizen labs, petitions and referenda seek to realize the BI through different claims to expertise than previous attempts. Observing both the tensions between diverse claims to expertise and the overall co-production process through which the Basic Income is realized, this contribution concludes with reflections on the politics of expertise involved in transformative social innovation.

There are currently several social innovation initiatives being developed in isolation, where each one has its own path. In this context, actors want to collaborate and be coordinated in a network in order to increase the development and dissemination of social innovations. The use of collaboration mechanisms gives rise to the expectation that actors playing in groups tend to achieve quantitative and qualitative performance higher than individual performances. While the potential benefits of collaboration are recognized, effectively achieving collaboration is still a challenge for social innovation. In this context, the objective of this study is to identify how the concepts of collaboration are recognized in social innovation environments. In addition, we investigated which mechanisms are used and what are the difficulties faced by actors in this context. To do so, a survey research on the aspects of collaboration in social innovation environments was conducted. Results shown that engagement is the most cited challenge related to human factors; from 30 techniques mentioned, Design Thinking is the most applied; and from 41 tools, Google Drive is the most cited. Results from qualitative analysis shown that collaboration is considered essential to social innovation environments, although there are several challenges reported.

Society is at a crossroads. Interconnected systems, radical transparency, and rapidly increasing sophistication in skills, communications, and technologies provide a unique context for fostering social innovation at a planetary scale. We argue that unprecedented rates of systemic social change are possible for co-creating a future where humans and all life can thrive. Yet, this requires innovation in the conceptions, practice, teaching, and researching of social innovation itself to reimagine what it is and can be. As a multidisciplinary group of academics, practitioners, and educators, we integrate our perspectives on social innovation and humanistic management to suggest the notion of systemic social innovation. We introduce the concept of “transformative collaboration” as central to facilitating systemic social innovation and propose a multilevel model for accelerating systems change. We then develop an integrated framework for conceptualizing systemic social innovation. Four levels of social impact are identified, and these levels are bracketed with a call for transforming individual consciousness at the micro level and new collective mindsets at the macro level. Blooom is presented as a case study to illustrate transformative collaboration, demonstrate the role of mindset shift in practice, and introduce four key ingredients to systemic social innovation. Finally, a call to action is issued for social innovation practice, teaching, and research. Most importantly, we seek to inspire and accelerate systemic social innovation that enables the flourishing of every human being and all life on earth.

This article shows the diagnosis of the Interdisciplinary Rural Internship Program, PIRI, held in a university institution in order to identify elements to improve its implementation. The research is descriptive, with a mixed approach, where surveys and interviews were used to collect information. A sample of 214 students was considered, belonging to different programs of the Autonomous University Corporation of Nariño. The results indicate significant contributions from PIRI to the institutions and to the students who have participated in the program. PIRI is used in an educational space for students to develop skills and apply their knowledge on issues related to social innovation. However, there are also difficulties such as the low number of participants, together with the lack of clear procedures that allow an adequate articulation of the entities linked to PIRI. In this sense, a model was formulated to facilitate the university management of social innovation in the institution under study, which articulates the dependencies of entrepreneurship, research and social projection, so that the benefits are oriented both to the university community and to the territories.

Technology is the answer, but what was the question? Introduction Many firms, charities and governments are in favour of more innovation, and like to side with the new against the old. But should they? A moment's reflection shows that it's not altogether coherent (whether intellectually, ethically or in terms of policy) to simply be in favour of innovation, whether that innovation is a product, a service or a social idea. Some innovations are unambiguously good (like penicillin or the telephone). Others are unambiguously bad (like concentration camps or nerve gas). Many are ambiguous. Pesticides kill parasites but also pollute the water supply. New surveillance technologies may increase workplace productivity but leave workers more stressed and unhappy. Smart missiles may be good for the nations deploying them and terrible for the ones on the receiving end.In finance, Paul Volcker, former head of the US Federal Reserve, said that the only good financial innovation he could think of was the automated teller machine. That was an exaggeration. But there is no doubt that many financial innovations destroyed more value than they created, even as they enriched their providers, and that regulators and policy makers failed to distinguish the good from the bad, with very costly results. In technology, too, a similar scepticism had emerged by the late 2010s, with digital social media described as the ‘new tobacco’, associated with harm rather than good, with addiction rather than help. Or, to take another example: when the US Central Intelligence Agency's venture capital arm, In-QTel, invested heavily in firms like Palantir, which then became contractors for the intelligence and military (a prime example of the ‘entrepreneurial state’), it was far from obvious how much this was good or bad for the world.The traditional justification for a capitalist market economy is that the net effects of market-led innovation leave behind far more winners than losers, and that markets are better able to pick technologies than bureaucracies or committees. But even if, overall, the patterns of change generate more winners than losers, there are likely to be some, perhaps many, cases where the opposite happens. It would be useful to know.

The 21st century has brought a cornucopia of new knowledge and technologies. But there has been little progress in our ability to solve social problems using social innovation – the deliberate invention of new solutions to meet social needs - across the globe. Geoff Mulgan is a pioneer in the global field of social innovation. Building on his experience advising international governments, businesses and foundations, he explains how it provides answers to today’s global social, economic and sustainability issues. He argues for matching R&D in technology and science with a socially focused R&D and harnessing creative imagination on a larger scale than ever before. Weaving together history, ideas, policy and practice, he shows how social innovation is now coming of age, offering a comprehensive view of what can be done to solve the global social challenges we face.

This book examines the ways in which universities can play a crucial role in inclusive development, social innovation and social entrepreneurship. It aims to prove the importance of inclusive development and inclusive innovation on economic growth and demonstrate the ways in which universities can be pioneers in this area through initiatives in social responsibility and social innovation. For example, providing access to a university education without discrimination of race, gender, income status, or other factors would help to diminish the increasing income differentials currently being experienced in many countries, especially in the developing world. The research and studies included in this book provide insight into possible actions that can be taken by universities and public and private shareholders in inclusive development, social innovation, social entrepreneurship and overall regional economic and social development.

As we grapple with how to respond to some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as inequality, poverty and climate change, there is growing global interest in ‘social innovation’ as a potential solution. But what exactly is ‘social innovation’? This book describes three ways to theorise social innovation when seeking to manage and organize for both social and economic progress.

La dernière décennie a été marquée par une croissance mondiale du nombre d’initiatives d’innovation sociale lancées dans le secteur universitaire. Ces initiatives visent à résoudre des problèmes sociaux complexes et à induire des changements institutionnels et systémiques. Cette poussée de l’activité d’innovation sociale se produit sans une base de connaissances empiriques bien développée. Nous y contribuons en fournissant une description et une analyse complètes de toutes les initiatives d’innovation sociale auxquelles participe le secteur universitaire canadien, de leurs caractéristiques et du paysage qu’elles constituent. Résultats notables: près de la moitié des 96 universités canadiennes sont associées à au moins une initiative; de nombreuses initiatives sont interdisciplinaires et mettent l’accent sur la résolution de problèmes en collaboration avec des secteurs extérieurs à l’université; Les agences gouvernementales et les fondations caritatives sont les sources de financement les plus courantes. Les résultats suggèrent: il existe un potentiel de croissance de l’innovation sociale dans le secteur; il y a moins de liens internes et de regroupement d’initiatives que ne le recommande la théorie de l’innovation; l’accent mis sur la collaboration extérieure rejoint la «troisième mission» des universités, qui existe depuis longtemps, mais les innovateurs sociaux ont des objectifs, des méthodes et des processus distincts pour mener à bien cette mission. Nous concluons avec les orientations pour les recherches futures. Keywords / Mots clés: Universities; Higher education; Social innovation; Community engagement; Service mission; Social change; Canada / Universités; Établissements d’enseignement supérieur; Innovation sociale; Engagement communautaire; Mission de service; Changement social; Canada

Nous proposons un regard réflexif sur deux expériences de recherche-projet menées dans le cadre de thèses de doctorat. Notre réflexion porte sur les apports et limites de cette démarche dans le cadre de projets ancrés dans les champs de la santé et du handicap, plus spécifiquement des troubles du sommeil et des troubles du spectre de l’autisme. La proposition repose sur la démonstration de l’intérêt de la conception participative propre à la recherche-projet dans ces domaines sensibles au sein desquels l’enjeu de l’inclusion des acteurs apparaît comme majeur.