Innovation in response to social challenges

This briefing looks at how the state of social innovation in the UK.

This briefing looks at how the state of social innovation in the UK.

Key findings:

  • Many social challenges are resistant to conventional approaches to solving them, i.e. through the markets or Government.
  • Social innovations have become more prominent, but still face significant challenges.
  • There is a need to identify and scale-up social innovations.
  • This would require intelligently designed resources (for example, locally adaptable toolkits, support for networks, and so on) as well as direct development funding. 

Nesta’s new programme – Innovation Challenges – will seek to demonstrate effective models for scaling social innovation.

 

The UK currently suffers from a lack of capacity for developing the social innovations necessary to meet these challenges. In particular, it lacks sufficient capacity to find and appropriately scale successful solutions to maximise their benefit.

 

The mechanisms for stimulating social innovation – and especially how to support scaling in ways that enable local ownership – need to be investigated in a systematic way through a programme of practice-based research.

 

Author:

Nesta