Exploring Social Innovation: An Introduction by Nora Wilhelm
As someone who recently graduated from a Masters of Studies in Social Innovation at the University of Cambridge, I am often asked, "what is social innovation?" In this blog post, I aim to provide an introduction to the concept of social innovation and its different types.
“Social innovation refers to the development of creative and practical solutions to complex social and environmental problems”
- Prof. Neil Stott & Prof. Paul Tracey, Co-Directors of the Cambridge Center for Social Innovation
Put simply, social innovation is about addressing the challenges humanity is facing, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, poverty, and gender equity - just four of the many challenges contained in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Social innovators are the people deploying different types of strategies to address these challenges.
Researchers have suggested that we are currently experiencing a "wave" of social innovation. This wave refers to the growing interest and investment in social innovation around the world, as more and more people recognise the importance of finding new solutions to social and environmental challenges. It is thought to define the upcoming decades, much like the invention of the internet and new media, or of electricity, did in prior generations. Some postulate focusing humanity’s energy and creativity on addressing social and environmental challenges is a necessity.
The term social innovation has become a buzzword, but it’s important to keep in mind that there is no one single definition that everyone using it agrees upon. Prof. Dr. Tracey and Prof. Dr. Stott of the University of Cambridge propose a typology of social innovation based on how social innovators are organising themselves to address the challenge they are focused on. The first, and best known type, is social entrepreneurship: the act of founding an organisation to tackle a social or environmental problem. Some choose to run it as a NPO, some as a traditional for-profit with a social purpose, while new legal forms are already emerging in some countries to account for the prioritisation of impact over, or alongside, financial results. Through the work of organisations such as Ashoka and Skoll in the last decades, social entrepreneurship has become a common concept in both practice and research.
The second type, social intrapreneurship, refers to the process of addressing these challenges from within established organisations. Social innovators choosing this approach seek to create change by leveraging the networks, skills and resources of established organisations. Championed by organisations such as the League of Intrapreneurs, the idea has been gaining momentum.
The last type is called social extrapreneurship. Contrary to the first two, this approach is focused on inter-organisational work, such as collaborations, networks and platforms. Social extrapreneurs support the emergence of collaborations amongst new and established organisations, and support innovation through combining the knowledge and resources of stakeholders from different backgrounds. Even though it’s the least-known type, there have been growing calls for more (cross-sector) collaborations to address the SDGs from practice and research alike. This is the approach that collaboratio helvetica, with strategies such as Social Innovation Labs, focuses on.
Besides the way social innovators choose to organise, the level of intervention, or in other words the type of change work that they are focusing on, is also a crucial variable to consider. Is the goal of the social innovation efforts to create a new product, service, or process, to change laws or mindsets, or to shift relationship and power dynamics? In the next blogpost of this series, I will explore different purposes of social innovation efforts, identifying levels of intervention along the iceberg model. In doing so, we’ll be able to hone in on the elusive concept of systems change.
In conclusion, social innovation is a powerful tool for achieving the SDGs and creating a more sustainable and just world. As an overarching concept, it gives us language to describe what being a ‘changemaker’ is all about, and allows us to share insights from practice and research more effectively. As we are riding this new wave of innovation, what type of social innovator are you?
Sources:
Nicholls, A. and Murdock, A. (2012) ‘The nature of social innovation’, in A. Nicholls and A. Murdock (eds) Social Innovation Blurring Boundaries to Reconfigure Markets. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–30.
Tracey, P. and Stott, N. (2017) ‘Social innovation: a window on alternative ways of organizing and innovating’, Innovation: Organization and Management, 19(1), pp. 51–60.
Nora Wilhelm is the Co-Founder and Catalyst of collaboratio helvetica. She has a background in youth engagement and active citizenship (European Youth Parliament) and specialised in collaboration, self-organisation, ecosystem leadership, systemic change and social innovation. Beyond facilitating multi-stakeholder processes and social innovation labs as well as promoting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), she is a renowned young leader, advocate and speaker, recognised for her work by the Swiss government, UNESCO, Forbes 30 under 30 and other institutions.
