Successful Social Innovation Research Articles

Social innovation for sustainable and equitable transport: the case of Commons Cargo Bikes

Socially innovative civil society initiatives are seen as promising to address societal and environmental problems such as those encountered in the transport sector. However, many social innovators struggle when it comes to growth and achieving broader system-level impact. These problems are often ascribed to challenges associated with organizational structures. This paper investigates the scaling process and organizational development of a European social innovation in the transport sector, Commons Cargo Bikes. Empirically, the study primarily builds on two quantitative surveys with initiatives and users as well as qualitative interviews with spokespersons of an overarching network. The results indicate that social innovations can provide important complements to technological and market-based innovations by providing alternative solutions that reach geographical regions and users not typically addressed by traditional services. Furthermore, the study highlights that rather formal structures can be necessary for successful social innovation networks at a certain point. As the present case study indicates, tensions associated with organizational changes might, however, be anticipated and addressed proactively by combining different organizational archetypes in one structure.

Transforming Education: Understanding How Social Innovation Makes a Difference in Education Sector

In the face of persistent educational challenges and the evolving demands of the 21st century, social innovation has emerged as a beacon of hope, offering a transformative approach to reimagine and reshape education systems. This paper delves into the concept of social innovation in the education sector, elucidating its defining characteristics, examining its profound benefits, and acknowledging the challenges it presents. Through a comprehensive review of existing literature, the paper showcases compelling case studies and examples of successful social innovations that have revolutionized educational landscapes. Education, the cornerstone of societal progress, faces persistent challenges in the 21st century. Social innovation emerges as a beacon of hope, offering a transformative approach to reshape education systems. Social innovation in education aims to address social needs, fosters collaborative partnerships, and prioritizes sustainability. It seeks to dismantle educational inequities and empower all learners to reach their full potential. The benefits of social innovation include enhanced learning outcomes, championed equity and inclusion, and preparation for the future. However, sustainability, scalability, measurement, and collaboration pose significant challenges. A growing body of research showcases successful social innovations that have revolutionized educational landscapes. Embracing social innovation can pave the way for a more equitable, effective, and future-ready education system.

Social, economic, and legal aspects of polder implementation for flood risk management in Poland and Hungary

AbstractThe implementation of nature‐based solutions that involve natural processes to mutually decrease flood risk and protect natural ecosystems can be an answer to the demand for resilient flood risk management (FRM). As an example of a nature‐based solution, flood polders have the potential to deliver those benefits; however, a need for innovation is observed in the field of redefining, combining, and reformulating existing approaches to improve the welfare and wellbeing of individuals and communities. This article aims to investigate polder implementation and management processes, perceived as a potential introduction of social innovation in Poland and Hungary, where social innovation in FRM is required but where the introduction of innovative solutions stalls at different stages. Based on a comparative analysis, a set of factors for effective social innovation was formulated regarding formal and legal conditions and economic and social aspects of polder management and implementation. Each of identified factors can either allow or hinder public engagement and successful social innovation.

A facilitated social innovation: stakeholder groups using Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles for perinatal health across levels of the health system in Cao Bang province, Vietnam

BackgroundUniversal coverage of evidence-based interventions for perinatal health, often part of evidence-based guidelines, could prevent most perinatal deaths, particularly if entire communities were engaged in the implementation. Social innovations may provide creative solutions to the implementation of evidence-based guidelines, but successful use of social innovations relies on the engagement of communities and health system actors. This proof-of-concept study aimed to assess whether an earlier successful social innovation for improved neonatal survival that employed regular facilitated Plan-Do-Study-Act meetings on the commune level was feasible and acceptable when implemented on multiple levels of the health system (52 health units) and resulted in actions with plausibly favourable effects on perinatal health and survival in Cao Bang province, northern Vietnam.MethodsThe Integrated Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (i-PARIHS) framework guided the implementation and evaluation of the Perinatal Knowledge-Into-Practice (PeriKIP) project. Data collection included facilitators’ diaries, health workers’ knowledge on perinatal care, structured observations of antenatal care, focus group discussions with facilitators, their mentors and representatives of different actors of the initiated stakeholder groups and an individual interview with the Reproductive Health Centre director. Clinical experts assessed the relevance of the identified problems and actions taken based on facilitators’ diaries. Descriptive statistics included proportions, means, and t-tests for the knowledge assessment and observations. Qualitative data were analysed by content analysis.ResultsThe social innovation resulted in the identification of about 500 relevant problems. Also, 75% of planned actions to overcome prioritised problems were undertaken, results presented and a plan for new actions to achieve the group’s goals to enhance perinatal health. The facilitators had significant roles, ensuring that the stakeholder groups were established based on principles of mutual respect. Overall, the knowledge of perinatal health and performance of antenatal care improved over the intervention period.ConclusionsThe establishment of facilitated local stakeholder groups can remedy the need for tailored interventions and grassroots involvement in perinatal health and provide a scalable structure for focused efforts to reduce preventable deaths and promote health and well-being.

Social innovations in healthcare provision: an analysis of knowledge types and their spatial context

ABSTRACT Peripheral regions face the challenge of ensuring adequate healthcare provision. As a solution to such challenges, social innovations are introduced. Knowledge exchange among diverse actors is a crucial component of successful social innovations in peripheral areas. However, little is known about the characteristics and the spatial context of knowledge in social innovations. We analyze micro-level knowledge dynamics in four social innovations in the healthcare sector of a Swiss mountain region. We distinguish three knowledge types according to the knowledge base approach: synthetic (practical and tacit), analytical (scientific and codified) and symbolic (semiotic and tacit). From innovation biographies and semi-structured interviews, we find that synthetic knowledge is the type used most throughout the social innovation process and that it is often combined with the other two knowledge types. Local actors and extra-local actors who are locally embedded contribute the most knowledge. The actors require a considerable number of craft and practical skills to apply their own analytical or symbolic knowledge, as well as to link these three knowledge types from different actors and spatial contexts. Social innovations combine locally and extra locally acquired synthetic knowledge with analytical and symbolic knowledge to solve peripheral healthcare challenges and to contribute to regional wellbeing.

WASTE FOOD MANAGEMENT AND DONATION APP

Wasting food is a common problem in our society. Food waste management is crucial since it can improve our environmental and economic sustainability. We have identified the use of mobile technology to reduce food waste management and built an android mobile application that allows individual user or restaurants to donate and share their foods and leftovers with people in need. In order to reduce that food wastage problem through android application we planned to do this project. In this project the guest can login & enter their Location, amount of food and type of food available. Then a simple notification is given to the agent. After seeing the notification the agent among that location can login & can gather the details of the donor. The donor can hold an account in this application & whenever there is food wastage he can login and enter the details of food and location. The agent can also hold an account and can retrieve the details. After retrieving the details the agent can collect food from the donor and can redistribute to the orphans or others. This project is food redistribution is an enormously successful social innovation that tackles food waste and food poverty. The user’s details are maintained confidential because it maintains a separate account for each user.

An international qualitative feasibility study to explore the process of using social innovation (co-production) strategies with older people: the SAIL project

PurposeThis paper aims to present the feasibility study findings from a four-year project funded by the European Union Commission (the SAIL project, Staying Active and Independent for Longer). The funding stream was Interreg 2Seas which offers opportunities for coastal areas on both sides of the English Channel to work together on complex practical issues. The project focused on enabling older people to stay active and independent for longer using social innovation (co-production) approaches.Design/methodology/approachTen pilot projects were developed, and each of the pilots worked with an academic partner to undertake a feasibility study that included 10 pilots across the four countries involved, France, Belgium, Holland and England.FindingsThis paper presents barriers and facilitators (using logic models) to the social innovation process with older people, which has wider relevance in terms of social innovation and its application.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings which inform this paper are extensive, and this is a longitudinal qualitative study with much of the data collection being done using an online wiki (complemented by interviews and documentary analysis) which is a relatively new method for data collection. However, the consistency of the findings when analysed by three researchers was clear and pragmatically this complex method was required to examine complexity in the process of implementing social innovation in practice.Practical implicationsThis project has enabled greater understanding of how social innovation can be applied and has highlighted contextual issues that can undermine or enable attempts to adopt the approach.Social implicationsFor the 10 pilot projects generated, there were obviously important cultural and geographical differences in terms of engagement and practical implementation of social innovation. Some of which, as mentioned in this paper, are very important for the successful implementation of social innovation in a particular setting and indeed may be a strength or a barrier in terms of engaging with local people and agencies.Originality/valueThe development of logic models is a useful approach when the topic under study is complex and likely to produce a diverse set of process outcomes. The logic model focuses upon the relationships between the resources that are used to create the intervention and what is produced in terms of outcomes. Ultimately, this enables the identification of the factors that contribute to a successful intervention. Thus, in relation to this study, logic models have helped to provide an evidence-based framework that can support decision-making regarding the most effective use of limited resources to support successful social innovation processes in the future. The logic model for each area of the findings presented here can in the future be used to help implement social innovation; also, to consider how it can be improved in future research.

Digital platform for social innovation: Insights from volunteering

Academics, policymakers and society at large are calling for solutions to societal problems. Digital platforms are a promising means to this end, as they can drive social innovation at a scale and pace previously unimaginable. To date, little attention has been paid to how technologies facilitate social change and lead actors to solve social problems over time. This study explores how digital platforms foster the development of successful social innovation practices to improve the process of social change and well‐being. It adopts a qualitative, in‐depth case study approach and focuses on RomAltruista, a so‐called social mission platform that promotes flexible volunteering. The study contributes to the literature by providing a framework for understanding the opportunities and role of platforms as cornerstones of successful social innovation practices.

It's a good thing to do!: How institutional entrepreneurs scale up social innovations.

Institutional entrepreneurs who are interested in solving social problems often seek out solutions in other contexts and then move the successful social innovations they find to their local context. This requires that the social innovation is translated successfully into the new context and, if it is to have significant impact on the social problem, “scaled” by diffusing it out into the institutional field to become the institutionalized solution to the problem. But while we have theories of the translation and diffusion of institutions that explain this process of innovation in general, we do not have a theory that fully explains how an institutional entrepreneur carry out this process of translation and diffusion to solve local problems. In this paper, I draw on a case study of the translation of the “High Scope” educational practice from the US to Thailand as a solution to tackle poor quality of early childhood education and social inequality, and the subsequent diffusion of the translated practice to develop a model of this process. I describe this process as “institutional evangelizing” that enables and promotes the diffusion of a social innovation. Our presented model of institutional evangelizing consists of three phases, including translation, enrolment, and integration. Our study contributes to the institutional literature by examining an important way that a social innovation is translated from another institutional context and diffuses in the new context, shedding light on how a social innovation scales and has an impact on institutional change.

Donation App Developed Using Flutter Technology

This project is used to manage the wastage of food in a functional way. People are throw away lots of food every day. So we have to lessen that food destruction problem through online. This app is basically a Food Donation App which bridge Food Donors (Caterers, Individuals and Restaurants etc.) and the Receiver (NGOs, Individuals etc.). This app stipulation of details of the leftover food along with pickup address and other relevant details which can be viewed by the Receivers. The Receivers as per their convenience can reach the specified location to collect the food parcel. Efficient management and security of data have been taken care of while developing our product. The user’s details are maintained confidential because it maintains a separate account for each user. This project’s food redistribution ability can become an enormously extensive successful social innovation that tackles food waste and food poverty.

Understanding the value of co-creation for social innovation interpretations of social innovation and co-creation in European policy-related documents between 1995 and 2018

Social innovation and co-creation have been discussed in academic literature for the last twenty years. However, the interrelatedness and application of these concepts in European Union policy deserves more attention. In our study, we focus on this relationship and application, by analysing the value of co-creation for social innovation. By analysing a large EU dataset, we showed that social innovation and co-creation were used more and more widely and that their use took off after 2010 and 2015 respectively. By applying a contextual analysis, we also revealed that both concepts became connected in EU policy on research and innovation. Our analysis also shows that co-creation became an indicator for successful social innovation in the Horizon Europe Framework programme. These results show the importance of co-creation in policies, but because the concept has not been defined properly, this carries the risk of simplifying co-creation into a box-ticking exercise.

Value co-creation through social innovation: A study of sustainable strategic alliance in telecommunication and financial services sectors in Bangladesh

The formulation of strategic alliance by commercial, social and government organizations has potential to simultaneously achieve market related success and develop solution to social problems. Social innovation that leads to positive changes in society by providing solutions to social and environmental challenges may also require strategic collaboration by multiple organizations. Despite recent scholarly interest in social innovation, there is scant empirical evidence on the underlying drivers of network-based sustainable strategic relationships that co-create value. Moreover, further academic research on multi-stakeholder engagement to develop collaborative and strategic alliance-led social innovation can advance relevant scholarships. This study addresses these issues by analysing value co-creation through sustainable strategic alliance amongst commercial and not-for-profit organizations in Bangladesh. The research adopts qualitative method in the form of in-depth interviews from thirty-four senior management of commercial and not-for-profit organizations and industry experts in Bangladesh. Findings highlight the underlying drivers of strategic alliance that lead to value co-creation for concerned parties. The findings also suggest that strategic alliance constitutes service-ecosystem that facilitates emergence, engagement and evolution of social innovation that eventually drives value co-creation through sustained and successful social innovation. As such, the paper contributes to relevant literature and offers useful insights for practitioners and policy makers.

From Social Entrepreneurship to Social Innovation: The Role of Social Capital. Study Case in Colombian Rural Communities Victim of Armed Conflict

How social entrepreneurship can become social innovation has been little studied, even less in the rural context. This document poses that social entrepreneurship generate different types of capital as they integrate into a social network, and it is that social capital that allows it to become a successful social innovation. Applying a social capital approach to two social enterprises (or social entrepreneurship) study cases, from Colombian rural communities victims of armed conflict, shows how social enterprises integrated into social networks achieve two significant outcomes. On one side, generate interactive and collective learning and institutional change, and on other, favour determinants of social innovation, thus incrementing and reconfiguring social entrepreneurs’ capabilities leading to social innovation.

How to measure the impact of social innovation initiatives?

Academic literature about the idea of social innovation grew sharply over the last decade, with researchers trying to define its concept and presenting several examples of successful social innovations. However, to support the development of social innovation initiatives is important to have a conceptual framework that allows evaluating its true impact. The purpose of this paper is to identify the boundary conditions for an effective set of social innovation indicators, which will help to have a more informed decision-making process. The main conclusion is that the impact of social innovations can be conceived as a set of results that manifests itself through different time periods, at different spatial scales, and must take into account the value experienced by all stakeholders involved. Thus, since a positive social innovation outcome depends on diverse factors and conditions, being most often context-dependent, it means that rather than imposing a specific set of indicators, based on a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach a measuring process procedure should be adopted to assess the impact of social innovations.

Forutsetninger for vellykket sosial innovasjon i sykehjem: ledernes perspektiv – en kvalitativ intervjustudie

Preconditions for successful social innovation in nursing homes: Managers' perspectives - a qualitative interview studyIn this article, we investigate preconditions for social innovation in institution-based elderly care in Norway and Denmark. The article draws on two semi-structured interviews and one focus-group interview. The interviewees are managers in elderly-care facilities that are known to be proficient with regards to innovation. The analysis point to three principles managers describe as being pertinent to successful social innovation. Firstly, an overall theme across the interviews was that the managers underscored the importance of eagerness and willingness to change as a prerequisite for innovation. Secondly, the managers claimed that another crucial condition to facilitate innovation is to involve the employees in both the negotiation and the implementation of innovation. Thirdly, the managers reported that they strive to create a learning environment, arguing that learning and social innovation are interrelated terms and should be treated as such.

A Social Innovation: Addressing Relative Food Insecurity and Social Exclusion

Food insecurity manifests itself on a continuum, and we note that it can range from absolute food insecurity to relative food insecurity, especially in the context of affluent countries. We focus on one such relative food insecurity that manifests itself when Dutch children cannot afford the culturally appropriate foods to participate birthday celebrations in primary schools, which is a long-established local custom. The inability of children to celebrate their birthdays in this public manner leads to school absenteeism, stigmatization, and social exclusion. This case study analyzes an intervention undertaken by Jarige Job, a Dutch nonprofit, that recognized and addressed this hidden social problem by using existing networks and infrastructures of national foodbanks. It provides insight into how a unique intervention of providing birthday boxes has become a successful social innovation that not only combats this relative food insecurity but is also able to address and mitigate the challenges of moral and cognitive legitimacy.

Review of sources of financing social innovations

The aim of the chapter is to present currently available as well as the potential sources of financing for social innovations. The method of desk research was used in the work, also a review of published prior research, internet resources and analytical reports. The conducted research indicates that the key factor of successful social innovation financing should be the extension of both financing instruments and the respective regulations. The conclusions refer primarily to the application of innovative financing instruments and the development of cross-sectoral cooperation.

Who Beats the Dutch Tax Department? Tracing 20 Years of Niche–Regime Interactions on Collective Solar PV Production in The Netherlands

In the past years, Dutch citizens have experimented with various kinds of innovations to organize the collective production of renewable energy, including shared wind power and solar PV installations. Most of these attempts failed mainly due to legal issues and tax rules. Yet, one model for solar PV on collective roofs was implemented more widely, namely the postcode rose (PCR, postcoderoos): a form of cooperative solar PV production within a set of adjacent postcode areas. Set within a broader transition perspective, this article studies the emergence and evolution of the PCR as an example of a successful social innovation in the energy transition, through an innovation biography and mapping of the evolution of the social and institutional network around the innovation. The various attempts for collective solar PV, with different degrees of success and uptake into the regime, present a key aspect of niche development, namely associational work (circulation and mobilization) focused on regime change. In conclusion, the innovation path of the PCR emphasizes the importance of the political and associational in the energy transition and in transition thinking.

Como a Inovação Social Poderá ser um Fator Crítico de Impacto Para Lidar com a Revolução da Longevidade em Curso

Brazil, and the entire world, are going through an inversion of the demographic pyramid, due to the convergence of longevity increase and birth rates decrease. This new reality creates challenges and requires innovative initiatives that can provide solutions to the needs that surface with this unprecedent transformation in History. Social innovation stands out as an alternative to promote inclusive solutions for the population that will live longer. The present research aims to answer how the social innovation proposes solutions that can be used to overcome the challenge of the growing longevity of the population. In order to achieve the purpose of this research, we chose to analyze Social Innovation from the perspective of the outcome. For this, Bruin and Stangl (2013), proposes for this type of analysis specific dimensions. We also analyze the profile of interviewing organizations to verify whether they meet the pillars of active aging proposed by OMS. The research undertaken here is qualitative and exploratory in nature, since the objective is to examine a little studied research theme or problem, a new or unknown phenomenon. (SAMPIERRE, 2006). The results showed that both organizations meet at least two pillars of active aging and can be considered as a social innovation that is scalable and can be replicated. The brief research undertaken here only fulfills an initial objective of locating initiatives that make it possible to visualize cases of successful social innovations, with the purpose of stimulating new reflections and research on the phenomenon and to address a gap identified by previous research in regard to bringing Reports of experiences of Social Innovation to improve the understanding of this growing field of research.

Making Decision in Open Communities: Collective Actions in the Public Realm

This special issue is comprised of five articles which explore the modes and forms of decision-making in open communities, i.e. in organizations having loosely coupled, often informal, structures with flexible and permeable boundaries. These communities are emerging in the public realm and performing actions which can be described as a collective. More and more of these organizational environments are perceived to be highly democratic, innovative, and leading to successful social innovations, cohesion processes and governance. The articles represent an attempt to capture the nature of decision environments specific to open communities, and the dynamics of their decisions. The articles discuss characteristics of these communities and how they enable more democratic decisions and, at the same time, identify decision-making constraints that create obstacles for effective collective actions.