SOCIAL INNOVATION PRACTICES IN HEIS

Sustainability

The interactions between the higher education sector and society and industry have been attracting increased attention in terms of ways to develop social innovation solutions to societal problems. Despite calls from politicians and the existence of some guidelines, we know little about how higher education could incorporate social innovation activities into its structure and missions. This study examines some practice experiences in two southern European public universities in Portugal and Spain. We show that the third mission of universities, which includes social innovation, is both linked to the first two missions of teaching and research, depending on the university’s historical and social context. The high dependence of higher education institutions on economic returns increases the importance of political action to drive the development of social innovation activities. This conditioning factor seems to be intrinsic to some of the barriers that have been identified, such as lac...

Canadian Journal of Nonprofit and Social Economy Research

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’innovati...

Hola Publishing Internacional, 2019

The report presents main results of the Students 4 Change, project, which was co-funded by the European Union and the European Commission under the Erasmus+ Programme for Capacity Building in the Field of Higher Education. The project involved 15 partner universities, 10 Latin American and five European, and a Non-Governmental Organization - ASHOKA, engaging at an international level. This three-year consortium took place between October 2016 and October 2019. The scope of the project presented two particular characteristics: first, it was an intercontinental collaboration between Latin American and European universities; second, it was the first Erasmus+ project coordinated by a non-European country. Coordination of the project was carried out by Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (México).

Advances in human resources management and organizational development book series, 2015

The issue of Corporate Social Responsibility has received increasing attention over the last few years. Organizations are introducing socially responsible practices in their strategies in order to be more competitive. At the same time, universities are also aware of the importance of the triple organizational vision (economic, social and environmental) and they are making a lot of actions to improve their performance. In this chapter, the authors state that innovation in Higher Education is an important fact and express the experience of innovation from socially responsible universities. These entities have to know their current state and the future demands from the different stakeholders with the intention of satisfy them. This chapter studies how to drive innovation and how to structure it at the university context, how to inform about University Social Responsibility and, finally, the benefits for socially responsible universities. Finally, in this chapter the authors link three important topics today: Corporate Social Responsibility, Universities, and Innovation. As a result, they propose a set of aspects in which Universities could innovate by improving their social responsibility.

How to encourage university-community engagement with local communities and disadvantaged groups? This is one of the main questions of the project LASIN – Latin American Social Innovation Network. Specifically, one of the main activities of LASIN is to design and run what are called SISU – Social Innovation Support Units, i.e., units dedicated to support the promotion of social innovation processes between university community members and external actors. Universities are privileged contexts for the experimentation of creative projects in social innovation if the focus is placed on fostering the interaction between internal and external actors, which can be significantly empowered by design practices. The specific objective of this paper is to describe a model for the SISU operation together with principles based on the design approach to social innovation. The recognition of the importance of the design in the promotion of social innovation has been particularly highlighted through the activities of DESIS (Design for Social Innovation Network). Design is also acknowledged through manuals and toolkits (not necessarily developed in design schools) that use tools and methodologies that clearly refer to design approaches. The main research question of this study is: how can design for social innovation promote social innovation at the intersection of the university and the wider society? To answer this question, this study was developed using a research through design approach and applies the SISU under development for the UFRJ-Federal University of Rio de Janeiro as a reference, which includes a consideration of the Brazilian policies (and their qualitative framework) regarding the relationship between university and the rest of society.

2012

Executive summary | 5 Introduction | 9 Method of selecting sources and points of emphasis | 10 1 The social economy, social enterprise, and social innovation: Key understandings for effective innovation strategies for today's world | 11 1.1 The social economy, social enterprise, and social entrepreneurship | 11 1.2 Understanding social innovation: Why it has become critical and what is needed to move forward | 13 1.3 Social innovation, getting it together: Collaboration, knowledge exchange, and knowledge mobilization | 16 2 Understanding social innovation as an ecosystem: Creating social and economic value in society | 18 2.1 Challenges for determining the impact and success of social innovation efforts | 18 2.2 A social innovation ecosystem as it supports employment: Paths and examples, public policy, and addressing fragmentation in social innovation | 19 3 Facilitating innovation through knowledge mobilization: Leveraging higher education R&D by institutionalizing social innovation through knowledge mobilization | 23 3.1 Engaging decision-makers with research, moving evidence into practice, and the utilization of research for public policy and public services | 23 3.2 Key messages and gaps in the literature | 24 3.3 Examples of institutionalized knowledge mobilization | 25 3.4 Existing programs and gaps in emerging practices | 26 4 Community-campus collaboration in leveraging higher education research and development: Key considerations for research, policy, and practice | 28 4.1 Community-campus collaboration: An overview of conceptual and methodological issues | 28 4.2 Hindering factors and facilitating conditions in community-campus collaborations | 30 4.3 Knowledge gaps in the literature on community-campus collaboration and implications for R&D policies and practices | 32 Conclusions and recommendations | 34 Closing Remarks | 36

Sustainability, 2019

This study examined the role of Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in promoting, creating, and sustaining social innovation. Recently, HEIs have extended their contribution beyond the traditional function of teaching and research to perform in socio-economic problem-solving. Considering the increasing trends of higher education involvement in social innovation practices, this study tries to examine the tools such as learning processes and systemic thinking approach that could be helpful to align the function and responsibilities of HEIs towards social innovation. The objective is to develop a theoretical understanding of the “co-creation for social innovation” concept and to understand the functions and activities of HEIs that can contribute to this process. To promote co-creation for social innovation, HEIs should actively encourage collaborative learning tools that focus on open platforms for collective action and systemic change that help them to engage with society and stren...

2023

Nordic Journal of Social Research, 2021

Introduction: Nordic countries face societal challenges for which social innovation may represent solutions. The aim of this scoping review is to explore the concept of social innovation within the research contexts of higher education, ealthcare, and welfare services. Method: A scoping review methodology was used, including a literature search and the identification of eligible studies published between 2007 and 2019, in addition to data extraction and synthesis. Forty-three studies were included in this review. Results: Across the research contexts, social innovation is conceptualized as a set of novel, creative, human-centred, and value-driven processes aiming to bring about change. Qualitative research methods dominate social innovation research. In welfare services, social innovation concerns the relationship between policy and praxis, new forms of leadership and management, and the promotion of societal inclusion and cohesion. Social innovation in healthcare comprises the use ...

Bataglin, J.C.; Kruglianskas, 2022

Scientific publications on social innovation and interest in the subject have grown substantially in the last decade, evidencing the need for more studies in this direction. This study aimed to map the scientific publications and intellectual structure in the field of social innovation, through a bibliometric study. The bibliometric survey specifically considered the period 2006–2021, through data indexed by the SCOPUS database, which included journals with a high impact factor. A total of 1192 articles were analyzed using the software VOSviewer (VOS) 1.6.15, to graphically map the material. The results showed explosive growth in the academic literature on social innovation in the last decade; moreover, they allowed the identification of the main authors, articles, topics, institutions, and countries in the field. From the analyses, a theoretical framework structured with four main emphases (clusters) was evidenced: (1) social entrepreneurship and the third sector; (2) strategic management and innovation; (3) sociopolitical aspects, urban development, and governance; and (4) innovation and sustainability.