This book offers a critical road map for understanding and researching "social innovation media"--initiatives that look for new solutions to seemingly intractable social problems by combining creativity, media technologies, and engaged collectives in their design and implementation. Presenting a number of case studies, including campaigns dealing with young people, Indigenous peoples, human rights, and environmental issues, the book takes a close look at the guiding principles, assumptions, goals, practices, and outcomes of these experiments, revealing the challenges they face, the components of their innovation, and the cultural economy within which they operate.

The one book you need to make a difference in the world. Social innovation and social entrepreneurship are rising forces. As the extent of the world's systemic challenges becomes clear—from climate change to income inequality to food security to healthcare and beyond—more and more of the best and brightest will feel called to become innovators and entrepreneurs who develop and deploy solutions to the world's thorniest problems. But it won't be easy: social innovation is complicated. Solutions require the active collaboration of constituents across the worlds of government, business, and nonprofits. Social innovators and entrepreneurs need a handbook to guide them on the journey to changing the world. This is that guide. Contributions from a who's who of the smartest thinkers and most experienced practitioners in the field provide the knowledge you need to succeed as a social innovator. Topics cover the waterfront, including: High-performance leadership as a driver of social change Design for extreme affordability Scaling social innovation Corporate decarbonization Social innovation and healthcare in the postpandemic world Donor-advised funds and impact investing Case studies from the field bring to life the challenges and opportunities social entrepreneurs and innovators face. Frontiers in Social Innovation is an essential volume for anyone who wants to use innovation and entrepreneurship to make the world a better place.

Extreme poverty continues to afflict the world, and it requires urgent action. Social innovation can be the driving force to spark change and to find common ground for shared value creation, particularly when it is directed at low-income markets. Leading companies have recently developed innovative forms of social innovation by combining three elements - the concept of shared value creation, the theory of the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, and a corporate social entrepreneurship approach - which they use to enter low-income markets by helping to solve global challenges while simultaneously generating profits.The book identifies the main forms of social innovation: social business models, social products and social communication strategies. Further, it shows how companies can successfully implement social innovation and presents new forms of social business models that can be used to target low-income markets. Finally, the book presents key success factors related to the social product innovation process and corresponding communication.

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.

Social Innovation is emerging as an alternate interdisciplinary development pathway of knowledge and practice that aims to understand and address contemporary complexities and multi – dimensional social realities. BEPA (2011) defines social innovation as, ‘innovations that are social in both their ends and means’. However, though Social Innovation is a widely-used term; its conceptual understanding and the specific relation to social change remains under explored. People Centered Social Innovation: Global perspectives on an Emerging Paradigm attempts to revisit and extend the existing understanding of Social Innovation in practice by focusing upon the lived realities of marginalized groups and communities. The emerging field of people-centered development is placed in dialogue with theory and concepts from the more established field of social innovation to create a new approach; one that adopts a global perspective, engaging with very different experiences of marginality across the global north and south. Theoretically, ‘People Centered Social Innovation: Global Perspectives on an Emerging Paradigm’ draws upon ‘northern’ understandings of change and improvement as well as ‘southern’ theory concerns for epistemological diversity and meaning making. The result is an experiment aimed at reimagining research and practice that seriously needs to center the actor in processes of social transformation.

This book addresses the practice of social innovation, which is currently very much in the public eye. New ideas and approaches are needed to tackle the severe and wicked problems with which contemporary societies are struggling. Especially in times of economic crisis, social innovation is regarded as one of the crucial elements needed to move forward. Our knowledge of its dynamics has significantly progressed, thanks to an abundance of studies on social innovation both general and sector-specific. However, despite the valuable research conducted over the past years, the systematic analysis of social innovation is still contested and incomplete. The questions asked in the book will be the following: 1. What is the nature of social innovations? 2.What patterns can be identified in social innovations emerging at the local level? 3.How is the emergence and spread of social innovations related to urban governance? More precisely, which conditions and arrangements facilitate and hinders social innovation? We explore these questions using different types of data and methods, and studying different contexts. In particular, we focus on innovations that aim at solving problems of the young unemployed, single parents and migrants. This analysis is based on original research carried out in the period 2010-2013 in the framework of a European project with a specific empirical research strategy. Research was carried out in 20 cities in 10 different European countries.

Social welfare is riddled with ingrained problems that have already defeated all standard approaches, and reform calls for counterintuitive action. Digital Social Innovation (DSI) is primarily about promoting grassroots initiatives to address localized societal problems, and is not normally talked about in relation to welfare reform, but perhaps social innovation initiatives, with their localized and case-based approach, could help to solve the enormous structural problems faced by our welfare democracies today. This book addresses the potential and implications of DSI for the reform of the European welfare state. The 14 papers collected here focus on key issues, such as the nature of social innovation and its effects; scaling up to address structural problems and make systemic change; new social risks and challenges; the role of digital thinking and emerging technologies; public governance approaches; tolerance of institutions; integrating innovation in the welfare system; and the empowerment of marginalized citizens. These topics are examined from an integrated and multi-disciplinary perspective, taking into consideration not only current EU debate on policy trends for social protection, but also the nature of digital transformation and its effects on social change. The book also highlights barriers to adoption, as well as the potential limitations and failures of this emerging approach. Digital social innovation is an emerging discipline that deserves more attention from policy makers and more resources from government. Drawing on welfare studies, political science, sociology, psychology, law and computer science, this book will be of interest to researchers, practitioners and policy makers alike.

It is commonly shared the idea that social innovation is the creation of social value by solving social problems. Accordingly, social innovation can be deemed to be the production of new solutions to social problems in a more effective, efficient, and sustainable way. Analyzing the consequences of the current economic crisis and its impact on health care services, there is who has advanced the idea that social innovation can constitute an effective strategy to counter-balance the retrenchment of public social provision.This book tackles the multiple facets of social innovation focusing on its relationship with the new technologies and the new forms of entrepreneurship.

The United Nations, Australia Post, and governments in the UK, Finland, Taiwan, France, Brazil, and Israel are just a few of the organizations and groups utilizing design to drive social change. Grounded by a global survey in sectors as diverse as public health, urban planning, economic development, education, humanitarian response, cultural heritage, and civil rights, Design for Social Innovation captures these stories and more through 45 richly illustrated case studies from six continents. From advocating to understanding and everything in between, these cases demonstrate how designers shape new products, services, and systems while transforming organizations and supporting individual growth. How is this work similar or different around the world? How are designers building sustainable business practices with this work? Why are organizations investing in design capabilities? What evidence do we have of impact by design? Leading practitioners and educators, brought together in seven dynamic roundtable discussions, provide context to the case studies. Design for Social Innovation is a must-have for professionals, organizations, and educators in design, philanthropy, social innovation, and entrepreneurship. This book marks the first attempt to define the contours of a global overview that showcases the cultural, economic, and organizational levers propelling design for social innovation forward today.

Based on more than thirty case studies in eight different countries, this book explores the governance dynamics of local social innovations in the field of poverty reduction. The diverse team of contributors reflect on the trajectory of social innovation in European governance. They illustrate how different governance dynamics and welfare mixes enable or hinder poverty reduction strategies and analyse how they involve a diversity of actors, instruments and resources at different spatial scales. The contributions are based on research motivated by the standstill in the fight against poverty in Europe and the anxiety that conventional macro-social policies are insufficient to deal with the current challenges.