{"id":12442,"date":"2011-02-24T10:00:55","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T15:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/researchimpact.ydsinc.ca\/looking-forward-to-social-innovation\/"},"modified":"2021-11-23T15:55:12","modified_gmt":"2021-11-23T20:55:12","slug":"looking-forward-to-social-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/researchimpact.ca\/fr\/archive\/looking-forward-to-social-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking forward to Social Innovation \/ Dans l’attente de l’innovation sociale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By David Phipps (ResearchImpact York)
\nWhat is social innovation? If knowledge mobilization (the process) results in social innovation (the outcome), knowledge brokers need to capture and evaluate social innovation outcomes that arise from knowledge mobilization.<\/em>
\nQu’est-ce que l’innovation sociale? Si la mobilisation des connaissances (le processus) conduit \u00e0 l’innovation sociale (le r\u00e9sultat), les courtiers de connaissances doivent alors identifier et \u00e9valuer les r\u00e9sultats de l’innovation sociale qui d\u00e9coulent de la mobilisation des connaissances.<\/em>
\nI have recently read four interesting and thought provoking pieces on social innovation.
\nThe Power of Social Innovation (2010) by Stephen Goldsmith presents the lessons learned from a two term mayor of Indianapolis including case studies from education, poverty and housing. This book is also backed up by a website<\/a> and the author may be found tweeting as @powerofsocinnov<\/a>.
\nThe Philanthropist (2010) released an Open Access edition (Volume 23, Number 3) of their journal featuring articles about Canadian social innovations. The entire edition and individual articles can be found here<\/a>. This journal featured articles written by Stephen Huddart of the McConnell Foundation<\/a> and Frances Westley of SIG @ Waterloo<\/a> among others.<\/p>\n

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On February 6, 2011, The Huffington Post published the interview Rahim Kanani had with Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, on the Evolution and Promise of Social Innovation<\/a>. There are wonderful stories about social innovation, collaborations and some lessons learned by the Rockefeller Foundation.
\n\u201cHorizons\u201d is published by Canada\u2019s Policy Research Initiative. In February 2011, Horizons published a number of articles on social innovation and the community sector. This follows their earlier briefing on social innovation<\/a> that did little more than ask the questions. You can read their analysis and their answers online here<\/a> by clicking on the left hand menu bar. There are many articles including ones on social impact bonds, public sector innovation and an interview with Louise Pulford of the Young Foundation in the UK.<\/p>\n

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All of these complement the national work of the Canadian Task Force on Social Finance<\/a> who tweet as @socialfinance<\/a> and the international reach of the Ashoka Foundation<\/a> who tweet as @ashokatweets<\/a>.
\nBut what is it? What is Social Innovation?
\nIn The Philanthropist, Geraldine Cahill published \u201cPrimer on Social Innovation: A Compendium of Definitions Developed by Organizations Around the World<\/a>\u201d. This includes definitions of social innovation drawn from practice around the world. In 2009, ResearchImpact-York published<\/a> the following definition:<\/p>\n

Social innovation is \u201cthe creation or application of research and knowledge to develop sustainable solutions to social, environmental and cultural challenges. Social innovation results in more efficient and effective human services, more responsive public policies and greater cultural understanding.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s a good definition as it links to results but the most elegant definition I read was from Louise Pulford<\/a> in which she defines social innovation as \u201cdevising new and better ways to tackle social problems\u201d. This is simple and easily understood but what relationship does it have to knowledge mobilization (KMb) and the work of ResearchImpact-R\u00e9seauImpactRecherche and the many engaged scholarship and research projects underway in Canadian communities and universities?
\nIn our 2009 paper we linked our definition of social innovation (above) to KMb by saying that \u201cKMb (the how) enables social innovation (the what)\u201d. We have recently refined this to say that social innovation is the outcome of the process of knowledge mobilization. KMb isn\u2019t an end in itself. KMb is a process that allows researchers and their partners to develop social innovations which are new and better ways to tackle social problems. At RI-York we have spent 4 years focusing our attention on the process of KMb but without looking we have also supported some examples of social innovations:<\/p>\n