Social innovation
Published:
January 2008
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Social Innovation (PDF, 63 KB)
Description
Nearly all innovation policy is tailored to the needs of traditional for-profit science and technology-based innovation. However, meeting the economic and social challenges of the coming decades will increasingly require fundamental improvements in public services. Social innovation is critical to this process.
Currently, the field of social innovation is poorly understood. New research by NESTA and the Young Foundation draws on practical examples from the UK and abroad to show how localities can use innovative approaches to transform public services. In each case study, innovation was a response to underperformance, whether the economic dislocation of a declining industry or the external pressure of a failing service.
Social innovation is driven by having the right strategies and organisations to marry real social needs with new, workable ideas to address them. But there are too few intermediary bodies to match the supply of new ideas to the demand for them. Funding is patchy, and there are insuffi cient incentives for public service managers to seek new and improved solutions.
Social innovations in one field can be spread to other areas of public services provision. Funding is important, but not the main driver, and social innovation can occur anywhere - even in areas without a long tradition of 'thinking differently'. Most importantly, by making changes to leadership, incentives and funding, national governments could rapidly transform the UK's ability to innovate socially.