Monthly-Spotlight: Partner interview with Jeremy Millard/Brunel University

Jeremy Millard, Visiting Research Fellow at Brunel University, London (UK) and member of SI-Drive Project

Why is Research in Social Innovation important for you?

Because social innovation represents par excellence the need for multi-disciplinarity, and indeed disciplinary integration, in order to conduct research as well as support practice and policy. It is an important battering-ram breaking down the towers of traditional disciplinary silos! My academic carrier started as a geographer, which also uses a multi-disciplinary approach although within a spatial context, so my mind is already geared to hopping between subject areas to borrow and integrate what is useful to tackle real societal problems.

What is the biggest challenge for Social Innovation Research?

To get the balance right between helping to establish social innovation as an important academic research disciple with its own rigorous theories, whilst also remaining embedded in the grounded realities of the lives of people and communities so that it can assist in providing practical sets of tools to those on the front line.

What result can we expect from SI-DRIVE?

Many results of course, but the most important for me is to spread awareness of social innovation research, as well as its tools, to the main big international organisations, such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the OECD and the World Economic Forum. These organisations definitely work in many of the areas where social innovation is highly relevant, but in the main, they do not know about social innovation nor deploy its insights and tools. There is huge potential here, not least for the United Nations which is currently preparing the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for sustainable development – or whatever they might be termed – concerning ‘wicked problems’ like inequality, employment, health, education, environment, good governance, etc. I am already working with most of these organisations and hope to use the global reach of SI-DRIVE to make an impact here.

Which book or article about Social Innovation should everybody read? Why?

It is extremely difficult to select just item one (just like on “Desert Island Discs”, which the Brits will know aboutJ), but if really pushed I would plump for:

Prahalad, C.K.; Hart, Stuart L. (2002). “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”, Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.

Maybe not considered mainstream social innovation, but for me its approach and cases exhibit both high social impact on the poor of this world whilst also equipping them with new capacities to become entrepreneurial and earn decent livings. The book discusses new business models targeted at providing goods and services to the poorest people in the world, so shows how entrepreneurship need not be anathema to social good. According to Bill Gates, it “offers an intriguing blueprint for how to fight poverty with profitability.”