Why is Research in Social Innovation important for you?

For me, research in this area provides a framework with which to think about some of the most interesting questions we face concerning the way boundaries and responsibilities for meeting social challenges are shifting. Social innovation research also provides a great opportunity to explore the tensions between bottom up and more directed forms of innovation; we often talk about the user driven nature of much social innovation, but we also talk about the role of policymakers in directing or enabling social innovation. This is a tension that I think our research can start to unpack and address, hopefully moving us towards a more informed policy discourse.

What is the biggest challenge for Social Innovation Research?

I think the biggest challenge comes from the breadth of this topic of research. Social innovation draws on economics, organizational and management science, political theory, entrepreneurship, history, communication studies and much more besides. There is a huge amount for us to digest and understand if we are to develop a rich picture of this discipline. This can be challenging as we need to be used to switching disciplines, traditions and making connections between them. That said, it also keeps things interesting!

What result can we expect from SI-DRIVE?

I think SI-DRIVE is likely to make an important contribution in grounding social innovation theory. This is something that has been touched on in other European projects, but I think we are now at the stage of development in the field where there is more to reflect on and synthesize. I also expect that the methodology we develop for mapping social innovations could make a useful contribution to social innovation research in the future.

Which book or article about Social Innovation should everybody read?

The article I would recommend is not particularly new, but makes some important points. It is Stephen Osborne and Louise Brown’s article for Public Administration from 2011, ‘Innovation, public policy and public services delivery in the UK: the word that would be king?’. This speaks specifically to the UK policy adoption of the terminology of innovation but I think its relevance is much wider – it reminds us that not all positive change is always innovative in nature and that not all innovative change is always beneficial. These are in some ways obvious points, but they can sometimes get lost in social innovation discourse.