Abstract
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 strengthen their collaboration with social actors. Different activities such as mutual learning and knowledge diffusion using a transdisciplinary approach, technology-based learning and collaboration, and relational transformation are key enablers that can promote social innovation.
Highlights
There has been an increasing interest in understanding and expanding the role of Higher educational institutions (HEIs) for social innovation to address complex societal challenges [1,2]
To manage the prevailing challenges and to improve the engagement of HEIs in social innovation practices require an understanding of an integrated approach that leads towards the redesigning and transformation in different levels of processes and functions of HEIs that can improve their capacity for social innovation [6]
We identified the various learning processes from our systemic literature review on Web of Science (WoS) data that can help to stimulate the process; Alden Rivers, Nie, and Armellini [64] identified the importance of different skills, behavior associated with the notion of changemaker and argued that designing education model for social innovation should be based on the understanding of outcome of the designed approach and the adoption of pedagogical praxis that supports and facilitates the designing and learning process [64,65]
Summary
The paper aims to develop understanding by examining and exploring different ways by which HEIs can improve their capabilities and capacity to enhance the opportunities for social innovation learners to participate in social innovation practices. This aspect focuses on two sub-questions: 1. Considering the various efforts to improve the capacity and to enhance the role of HEIs in innovation process, this paper proposes a framework how the changes in the learning models, improvements in curriculum programs, and the use of systems thinking approach can be linked with the contribution of HEIs in the social innovation process.
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