Votre recherche

The Public Health Agency of Canada’s Innovation Strategy (PHAC-IS) was established amid calls for diverse structural funding mechanisms that could support research agendas to inform policy making across multiple levels and jurisdictions. Influenced by a shifting emphasis towards a population health approach and growing interest in social innovation and systems change, the PHAC-IS was created as a national grantmaking program that funded the testing and delivery of promising population health interventions between 2009 and 2020.

Upon election in 2015, the Justin Trudeau Liberal government announced its intention to transform government operations by bringing nonprofit and private sector partners into the center of public sector decision making through new structures such as Policy Hubs and Innovation labs. These collaborative arrangements were intended to yield the benefits of Michael Barber’s theory of deliverology by breaking through the public sector aversion to risk and change and by creating new spaces for devising effective solutions to the increasingly complex social and economic challenges facing government. A preliminary examination of the use of policy hubs and innovation labs in Canada between 2015 and 2020 indicates that the results have been mixed for the nonprofit sector partners. Collaborative relations have offered nonprofit sector partners new opportunities and access to influence policy decisions. However, this influence also poses risks to their independence, legitimacy and effectiveness as policy advocates. Both public and nonprofit sector partners in PILs should heed certain cautions in choosing future partnerships or they may find their ability to achieve meaningful policy change is limited.

There has been global growth in the number of social innovation initiatives launched in the university sector over the last decade. These initiatives aim to address complex social problems and to promote institutional change. This surge is occurring without a well-developed empirical knowledge base. This article provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the landscape of social innovation initiatives in the Canadian university sector. Findings show that nearly half of Canada’s 96 universities are associated with at least one initiative; many are interdisciplinary and emphasize collaborative problem-solving with sectors outside the university; and government agencies and charitable foundations are the most common funding sources. Findings suggest there is room for growth and for linking and clustering initiatives. The article concludes with directions for future research. RÉSUMÉLa 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

Inspired by recent calls for a transformation of management scholarship, we conduct a scoping review of empirical studies during 1998–2015 on the phenomenon of social innovation within organizations. Social innovations are novel solutions that address social problems and create value for society as a whole. We make several problem-based observations and suggest how the social innovation phenomenon can be empirically grounded and contextualized to make future research intellectually relevant and meaningful for practice. We propose that the way forward lies in using abduction as a logic of discovery, adopting complexity theorizing, and using set-theoretic analytical methods to reflect multiple realities. The application of these three methods will help link theory and research methods with practice, thereby improving the ability of research to tackle managerial and societal issues and hence strengthening management scholarship.

The Social Innovation Fund (SIF) - funded by Scottish Government and the European Social Fund - adopts a ‘public venture capital’ model to support socially innovative organisations. This article critically explores the use of public venture capital programmes to fund and grow the social economy through the case study of Heavy Sound Community Interest Company. We conclude that, while SIF funding helped Heavy Sound to scale-up an effective intervention in the short term, further significant scaling might undermine the project’s success and long-term sustainability was not assured. We call for further research into the long-term consequences of public venture capital programmes coming to an end, including coordinated evaluation of the SIF.

This paper performs a critical analysis of the financial instruments that can be employed to fund social innovation, with a specific focus on social tech start-ups that develop and deploy technology-driven solutions to address social needs in a financially sustainable manner. The paper analyses how these start-ups can access financing, the barriers to financing that these organisations experience and the financial instruments that are most suitable to address their financial needs. Social tech start-ups have many points of overlap with high-tech start-ups in terms of the barriers they encounter to financing in different lifecycle stages. Still, the institutional solutions that are commonly exploited by high-tech start-ups for growth are not enough to support social tech start-ups to scale. Therefore, we introduce the concept of SII and discuss its potential contribution to the social tech finance landscape. Then, using the case of social tech start-ups as paradigmatic of the broader problem of financing mechanisms for social innovation, we formulate a research agenda, including directions for research and theoretical development in the field of SII.

Co-editor of this issue David Peacock interviews Stephen Huddart (President and CEO) and Chad Lubelsky (Program Director) of the McConnell Foundation, a historic supporter of postsecondary education across Canada. McConnell’s investments in community service-learning, social entrepreneurial and innovation activities and social infrastructure programs and dialogues have made them a significant partner for many Canadian higher education institutions. Yet not all community-campus engagement scholars and practitioners, and Engaged Scholar readers, may have heard McConnell articulate for itself its aims and goals for Canadian higher education and society. This interview canvasses the scope of McConnell’s work and interests in community-campus engagement, and sheds light on the actions of an influential private actor in the postsecondary sector.

Background Social innovations in health are inclusive solutions to address the healthcare delivery gap that meet the needs of end users through a multi-stakeholder, community-engaged process. While social innovations for health have shown promise in closing the healthcare delivery gap, more research is needed to evaluate, scale up, and sustain social innovation. Research checklists can standardize and improve reporting of research findings, promote transparency, and increase replicability of study results and findings. Methods and findings The research checklist was developed through a 3-step community-engaged process, including a global open call for ideas, a scoping review, and a 3-round modified Delphi process. The call for entries solicited checklists and related items and was open between November 27, 2019 and February 1, 2020. In addition to the open call submissions and scoping review findings, a 17-item Social Innovation For Health Research (SIFHR) Checklist was developed based on the Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) Checklist. The checklist was then refined during 3 rounds of Delphi surveys conducted between May and June 2020. The resulting checklist will facilitate more complete and transparent reporting, increase end-user engagement, and help assess social innovation projects. A limitation of the open call was requiring internet access, which likely discouraged participation of some subgroups. Conclusions The SIFHR Checklist will strengthen the reporting of social innovation for health research studies. More research is needed on social innovation for health.

Cette recherche vise à comprendre le processus de coproduction d’innovations sociales dans le contexte des plateformes numériques. À travers l’étude de la plateforme "Solidarité Covid-19 Francophonie", nous analysons comment l’intelligence artificielle facilite la collaboration entre des acteurs de cultures différentes et/ou développant des projets dans des domaines variés. Les résultats de l’étude ethnographique, complétée par une analyse quantitative, révèlent le développement des pratiques collaboratives grâce aux différents types de connecteurs, humains ou non-humains, qui organisent les échanges et facilitent la circulation de ressources affectives et cognitives. De manière paradoxale, l’analyse montre la difficulté de la plateforme à inclure certains publics.

Cet article s’intéresse aux modes d’interactions entre recherches et société et à la prise en considération de la diversité des productions de connaissances et savoirs. Au lieu d’être fondées sur des relations verticales, où seuls les savoirs reconnus comme scientifiques sont vecteurs de progrès (voir l’article de Marcel Jollivet, p. 61), ces interactions peuvent prendre la forme de recherches participatives construites sur des relations plus horizontales qui font place aux savoirs expérientiels. Dans le premier cas, ces interactions sont des médiations à sens unique alors que, dans le second, il s’agit d’intermédiations au sein de collectifs hybrides réunissant chercheurs et acteurs de la société civile. Les échanges et rapports sociaux au sein de ces collectifs dépendent de « savoirs » radicalement différents, selon que l’on se situe à l’échelle individuelle ou sociétale

University students will be our future business leaders, and will have to address social problems caused by business by implementing solutions such as social entrepreneurship ventures. In order to facilitate the learning process that will foster social entrepreneurship, however, a more holistic pedagogy is needed. Based on learning theory, we propose that students' social entrepreneurship actions will depend on their learning about CSR and their absorptive capacity. We propose that instructors and higher education institutions can enhance this absorptive capacity by exploiting Web 2.0 technologies. We tested our proposition with a sample of 425 university students using structural equation modeling and found support for the proposed relationships.

This essay revisits the historical development of a concept – tecnologia social – as one avenue for discussing alternatives to post-development, arguing that the Western-based historical path of technology development is one of the main sources of growing human impoverishment, social inequalities and economic dependency. The concept of tecnologia social points towards political processes that create opportunities to redefine the arrangements among social groups, artefacts and methods used in everyday life, particularly for production and consumption. Because the post-development debate has been criticised for formulating a sound and strong critique to mainstream development but failing to propose concrete empirical alternatives, we seek to foster the debate through the Latin American concept of tecnologia social.

According to different authors, science and technology based companies could be considered as a crucial chain in transforming research and development investments into economic value. This could impact company’s business performance and at the same time the development of country’s economy. Moreover, according to today’s empirical research, extremely fast innovation and technology development all over the world has a different effect on separate industries. There is a lot of academic literature where science and technology based company environment assessment issues are described, however, there is a lack of assessment methods and/or ratios/indicators, which show how the company is science, innovation and technology based and even how to identify such kind of company. This article is divided into structural parts, reflecting: R&D environment analysis based on the case of Lithuania; academic literature overview regarding science and technology based company’s environment analysis; definition of S&T based company economic/financial assessment ratios. After the analysis, a list of ratios/indicators were presented, which empower to identify and/or asses such kind of company. Data availability was the core factor in these indicators creation processes. Research methods used are based on systematic literature analysis, mathematical statistics methods, logical comparative and generalization analysis.

Cet article rend compte de la manière dont les organisations internationales pourraient s’approprier la démarche délibérative à l’occasion de leurs efforts de régulation éthique de l’IA en présentant le projet de la délibération internationale intitulée « Dialogue inclusif sur l’éthique de l’intelligence artificielle (IA) » (ODAI) menée par Algora Lab - Université de Montréal et Mila - Institut québécois d’intelligence artificielle. Ce projet délibératif portait sur le premier instrument normatif mondial en éthique de l’IA rédigé par l’UNESCO. L’ODAI se démarque par sa portée internationale, le nombre de personnes consultées et sa réalisation en ligne. Après une présentation du cadre méthodologique et théorique de la délibération sur l’éthique de l’IA, nous opérons une analyse critique du processus et nous proposerons finalement des recommandations pratiques pour de futures délibérations en éthique de l’IA.

Antecedents of innovation precede their implementation and probably influence which innovations and whether they are approved and implemented. Antecedents have been identified in a considerable number of types of innovation. Are they the same in these types? A systematic literature review (SLR) of antecedents of policy innovation found 594 antecedents, 508 of them unique, in 87 articles on trailblazing and adoption. So many antecedents suggest a lack of clarity about what the antecedents of policy innovation may be. They have been clarified for policy innovation. In this paper the antecedents of policy innovation are compared to antecedents of private, public sector and social innovation identified in literature reviews, SLRs and metaanalyses to see whether common or different antecedents are identified in these literatures. While the literature often implies antecedents of different types of innovation are the same by lumping them together, they were found to vary somewhat by type of innovation, especially trailblazing and higher-level factors and clusters. External antecedents were only found to be important for policy innovation and dissemination; political antecedents were particularly important for trailblazing; internal antecedents were important for all types of innovation. Literature on antecedents of private innovations did not consider external or political antecedents. Four research questions are addressed: Q. 1: At what level should antecedents of innovation be analyzed and compared? Q. 2: How do antecedents identified for different types of innovation compare—private, public and public-social sectors? Q. 3: How do clusters identified for different types of public sector innovation compare— processes; trailblazing and adoption of policy; dissemination; private, public, public-social sectors? Q. 4: Do a common set of unique and grouped antecedents, factors and clusters influence all types of innovation equally or are their antecedents discernably different? Key words: antecedents of innovation, comparison of antecedents, types of innovation, systematic literature review.

The paper organizes and summarizes the conditions (antecedents) researchers and practitioners identified as occurring prior to trailblazing and adoption of public policy (including program) innovation, as identified in a systematic literature review. The review identified 87 relevant documents and 594 antecedents. Trailblazing of innovation is Rogers’ (1995) first two stages of adoption—innovation (invention) and early adoption (identified here as second and third adoptions in a government’s community or population). The antecedents are analyzed into grouped antecedents, factors and clusters. The most-mentioned grouped antecedents were citizen pressure, process, structure and political culture. The most-mentioned factors were innovation drivers, people, policy/process, and context. The factors were organized into clusters—external, political and internal. Based on number of mentions the literature considered the internal cluster the most important. The most-mentioned factors in external cluster were context and people; in political cluster, drivers, political context and political actors; in internal cluster, innovation process, drivers, people and internal environment. Multiples more antecedents were identified for internal cluster than the others. Lack of consistent definitions and the mixing of stages and levels in the literature has hampered understanding of antecedents and placed limitations on this study. The literature sometimes distinguished external and internal cluster; the current analysis also considers a political cluster, which is especially important to trailblazing of public policy innovations.

A systematic literature review (SLR) of antecedents of trailblazing and adoption of public policy innovation was conducted. Many antecedents were found—594. A terminology and classification system for them was therefore developed (unique antecedents-508, grouped antecedents-28, factors-15, clusters-3). Differences among trailblazing/adoption and quantitative/qualitative studies were explored six ways. Eleven grouped antecedents of trailblazing were importantly different from those of adoption, 17 were not. Grouped antecedents of quantitative and qualitative studies were not importantly different and so were used as the standard. Only trailblazing had different antecedents from the other three types of study (adoption, quantitative, qualitative). Eight grouped antecedents were the best indicators of policy innovation. Of the three clusters of antecedents, external and internal cluster grouped antecedents were equally important for all four kinds of study; political cluster antecedents were different for trailblazing. Although there was no one best political indicator (large difference from adoption) for trailblazing, political cluster was more important for trailblazing than adoption. Political cluster was higher (had a higher proportion of mentions) and internal cluster lower for trailblazing; political cluster was lower and internal cluster higher for adoption. The important antecedents for public policy innovation were compared to those for the private/public sector, public process/policy and public/social innovation: Differences were found. The best antecedent indicators of trailblazing of policy innovation identified in the literature were external environment, drivers, obstacles (external) and people (internal).

Despite recommendations for more quantitative analyses of public sector innovation factors (Glor, 2014a; de Vries, Bekker and Tummers, 2016), there has been limited examination of them. This paper identifies and explores six factors (ideology, politics, the economy, external support, resources, effects) that influenced the introduction and survival or termination of the first time these public sector innovations and their five organizations (I&O) were introduced in North America. It assesses their key antecedent factors before creation (Time 1) and the same factors again at the time of their fate 15 to 44 years later (Time 2). They were assessed with a new measurement instrument examining the six factors (Glor, 2017a). The tool has 1267 statements (items) and 555 pairs of data, with scoring distributed on a five-point Likert scale. Three expert raters completed the instrument (Glor, 2017b). Based on mean scores, the most important factors in Time 1 (creation of I&O) were found to be the economy, resources, effects and external support and in Time 2 (survival/termination) ideology and politics. This methodology could potentially be used to study the remaining 154 Government of Saskatchewan (GoS) population’s innovations and that of other populations.

Although healthcare managers make increasingly difficult decisions about health innovations, the way they may interact with innovators to foster health system sustainability remains underexplored. Drawing on the Responsible Innovation in Health (RIH) framework, this paper analyses interviews ( n=37) with Canadian and Brazilian innovators to identify: how they operationalize inclusive design processes; what influences the responsiveness of their innovation to system-level challenges; and how they consider the level and intensity of care required by their innovation. Our qualitative findings indicate that innovators seek to: 1) engage stakeholders at an early ideation stage through context-specific methods combining both formal and informal strategies; 2) address specific system-level benefits but often struggle with the positioning of their solution within the health system; and 3) mitigate staff shortages in specialized care, increase general practitioners’ capacity or patients and informal caregivers’ autonomy. These findings provide empirical insights on how healthcare managers can promote and organize collaborative processes that harness innovation towards more sustainable health systems. By adopting a RIH-oriented managerial role, they can set in place more inclusive design processes, articulate key system-level challenges, and help innovators adjust the level and intensity of care required by their innovation.

Dans le document de réflexion et de consultation L’université québécoise du futur, Rémi Quirion, le scientifique en chef du Québec, expose les assises nécessaires à une réflexion de plus grande ampleur sur l’avenir des universités au Québec. Ces assises se déclinent en six points : les tendances susceptibles d’influencer les universités du futur; les éléments importants de l’évolution du système universitaire québécois depuis la fin du XXe siècle; une réflexion concernant plusieurs aspects de la mission universitaire, dont les conditions nécessaires à son accomplissement; les préoccupations fondamentales devant l’inspirer (dont trois nouveaux enjeux pour les universités); une synthèse des différents constats sur lesquels fonder les principales pistes d’action susceptibles de concourir à la pertinence continue de l’institution universitaire. Ces pistes sont celles sur lesquelles le gouvernement propose aux Québécois de se prononcer dans le cadre de consultations en cours et ultérieures. Après avoir présenté le contexte de préparation et le contenu du rapport L’université québécoise du futur, nous exposerons les constats et les recommandations qui en sont issues de la part du scientifique en chef.