Publications and Articles

Social innovation is the new global obsession.

Where is the Silicon Valley for public services in Britain? Highly innovative sectors of the economy benefit from an infrastructure of science and innovation parks, business incubators, R&D labs and the like.

A discussion paper detailing a proposed structure and activities for an Australian Centre for Social Innovation to be established by the South Australian Government by the end of 2008 and based in Adelaide.

How does active citizenship contribute to the wellbeing of communities? This report, which is the first in a series of publications from the Local Wellbeing Project, tries to answer this question by investigating empowerment initiatives in three very different local authorities: Hertfordshire, Manchester and South Tyneside. The report finds that neighbourhood and community empowerment has three effects which increase wellbeing: • Providing greater opportunities for residents to influence decisions affecting their neighbourhoods
• Facilitating regular contact between neighbours
• Helping residents gain the confidence to exercise control over local circumstances The report represents one of several strands of work developed through the Local Wellbeing Project.

The Association of German Foundations in cooperation with the International Centre for Franchising and Cooperation have just published a comprehensive manual on the theory and practice of social franchising, Social Franchising - A Way of Systematic Replication to Increase Social Impact. The manual explores the potential of adapting the method of franchising to the social sector and is part of the Social Franchise project, which the Association of German Foundations is carrying out in cooperation with six renowned European foundations.

The submission proposes that the Australian government support for innovation does not give appropriate priority to social innovation and the critical social and environmental challenges that face the nation.

This report outlines a pilot study undertaken in the Basque Country (Spain) to test and evaluate a framework for the assessment of inclusive entrepren...

Contributing to sustainable development by knowledge sharing, creativity and co-design ...

We have studied several organizations that exemplify this network approach.

Through future scenarios ranging from the highly probable to the highly improbable but potentially high impact, The Collaborative City draws out implications of a wide range of future trends in London including population growth, community relations, climate change and housing and shocks to the system such as pandemics .