Designing Social Innovation Through Social Enterprise

Abstract

With the development and consolidation of social design, design thinking methods have also been recruited into social design projects by a variety of organisations, e.g. IDEO, Frog, Grameem Bank. Courses on social innovation in the university sector as well as other engagements of students with these challenges reveal both the challenges and potentials of the disciplinary encounter between social enterprise and innovation and design. Recent critique of design approaches to social innovation focus on the need for greater collaboration with other disciplines and more evidence of impact. This chapter reviews current literature and examples linking social innovation with design. We then consider three cases of undergraduate and postgraduate education in designing social enterprise and innovation in Melbourne Australia and Glasgow, UK. We discuss the strengths and limitations of design education in enabling students to address social innovation and identify six general and nine teaching insights. In particular, we focus on the capacity of design to contribute to idea generation but that a range of other knowledge, experience and skills is required to implement social innovation projects.