Jürgen Howaldt and Dmitri Domanski release together with Chilean colleagues the study “Social Innovation in Latin America: The Chilean Case”. The publication gives an insight into some trend-setting developments in the field of social innovation in Chile and Latin America.
This study by Dmitri Domanski, Jürgen Howaldt, Pablo Villalobos and Carlos Huenchuleo explains what kind of role social innovations play in Chile. Considered as one of the most developed countries in Latin America, at the same time, Chile is known for great social and economic inequalities as well as massive environmental problems. In recent years this also has led to increasing social conflicts. Against this background, the study shows how social innovations can contribute to meet these challenges. It focuses on three examples from areas which are crucial for the development of the topic of social innovation: government, academia and civil society.
The short case studies give insights into the width of the topic and illustrate the potentials of a comprehensive innovation concept. Moreover, the three examples demonstrate the diversity of purposes and methodologies related to social innovation initiatives. They make clear how economic, social and ecological goals can be combined and emphasise the significance of intersectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration for social innovation. The analysis is oriented towards five key dimensions of social innovation that fundamentally affect the potential of social innovations, their scope and their impact. This methodology has been developed for the international research project SI-DRIVE and is applied within this project for a global mapping of social innovations.
The study “Social Innovation in Latin America: The Chilean Case” is published by CIEPLAN and can be downloaded at http://www.cieplan.cl/media/publicaciones/archivos/373/Social_Innova_tion_in_Latin_America_The_Chilean_Case.pdf
CIEPLAN, founded in Chile in 1976, is a renowned centre for social and economic analyses of Latin American countries (http://www.cieplan.org).