435.2
Contemporary Practices of Social Innovation: Collective Action for Collaboration
Peter Oeij, Steven Dhondt, Wouter van der Torre & Karolus Kraan – TNO (Netherlands)
A large-scale international project ‘SI DRIVE: Social innovation, driving force of social change 2014-2017”, collected more than 1000 cases of social innovation across the globe in seven policy fields: Education, Employment, Energy, Transport , Poverty, Health and Environment (Howaldt et al). From those 1000 cases 81 were selected for in-depth case study. Our purpose is to contribute to the mapping out of the innovation landscape: how are these social innovations developing; is there a resemblance with the ‘innovation journey’ (Van de Ven et al) of innovations in technology / business?
Social innovation exemplifies experiences that are developed in the field of mutual aid and solidarity, and stress social value rather than economic competitiveness. Part of social innovation are initiatives of individuals / communities, of private entrepreneurs, of public organisations, and of combinations of those. Over time they may become either fully private, public or a public-private partnership.
The innovation journey is a process model that makes a distinction between the initiation, developmental and implementation / termination period of innovations; it looks at drivers and barriers, like innovation managers, investors, setbacks, adaptation, infrastructure. We operationalise this model, its periods and variables and apply it to the process of social innovation, to gain insight in the dynamics of these rather new practices of (social) innovation and in the character of collaboration between actors.
References
Howaldt, J., Schröder, A., Kaletka, C., Rehfeld, D. & Terstriep, J. (2016). Comparative Analysis (Mapping 1) - Mapping the World of Social Innovation: A Global Comparative Analysis across Sectors and Word Regions (SI-DRIVE Deliverable D1.4).
Van de Ven, A. H., Polley, D. & Garud, R. (2008). The innovation journey. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.