Three articles, published in two scientific journals, deal with current developments in the field of social innovation and present the work of SI-DRIVE.

In their article “Social Innovation and Human Development: How the Capabilities Approach and Social Innovation Theory Mutually Support Each Other” Jürgen Howaldt and Michael Schwarz discuss the analytical concept of social innovation in the context of the Capabilities Approach, a human development concept based on the philosophical work of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. The authors conclude that these two perspectives stimulate each other regarding a theoretical foundation of the concept of social innovation. This paper was published in the special issue “Social Innovation” of the “Journal of Human Development and Capabilities”.

Another contribution to the special issue “Social Innovation” has been the article “Social Innovation in Latin America”, written by Dmitri Domanski, Jürgen Howaldt and Antonius Schröder. The authors provide an overview of the exciting development of this topic in a region which is characterised by with the highest income inequality in the world. Based on the results of the global mapping of social innovations, carried out within the framework of the research project SI-DRIVE: Social Innovation – Driving Force of Social Change, the authors elaborate on policy recommendations. Against the backdrop of mostly weak state involvement in social innovation in the region, Domanski, Howaldt and Schröder discuss how governmental policies could contribute to the development of social innovations in a targeted way.

The article “Social Innovation: Towards a New Innovation Paradigm” by Jürgen Howaldt, Dmitri Domanski and Christoph Kaletka offers a detailed discussion of the results of SI-DRIVE’s global mapping. Published in the special edition “Social Innovation: Researching, Defining and Theorizing Social Innovation” of the Brazilian scientific journal “Mackenzie Management Review”, this paper first addresses current developments in the field of social innovation within the context of a new innovation paradigm. The authors then present the central results of the global mapping according to the five key dimensions of social innovation, an analytical model developed within the project. These dimensions refer to how social needs influence the emergence of social innovations, which actors are involved in these processes or what kind of obstacles they are confronted with.