Although many aspects of innovation, including the ability to creatively problem solve and adapt to changing context, have long underpinned the work of NGOs, it is currently emerging as a new and distinct area of practice. At present, there is both scepticism towards, and enthusiasm for, innovation in the sector – as well as a ... An introduction to social innovation for NGOs
By Bond, SIX and Oxfam
April 20, 2016
SIX asked Kevin Shane, Principal and Communications Lead at Quicksand, based in India, to share insights and lessons from their work and human-centred design including what it looks like in practice, key challenges and how the process can add to the field of international development. Human- or user-centered design is a framework or system of processes ... What does it really mean to put the user at the centre of international development? Lessons from Quicksand
By Kevin Shane
April 18, 2016
The unprecedented flows of migrants approaching Europe was (and still is) confronting the European Union and its Member States with a series of complex challenges. It raises fundamental questions about the social and cultural fabric of European societies. Ingenuity, vision, as well as political will and an efficient use of resources are required if we ... Innovation, integration and the migrant crisis – insights from European innovation
By SIX
April 11, 2016
Building on Social Innovation Europe (SIE)’s country profiles which demonstrate a variety of views on what social innovation means to different kinds of organisations in a particular country, SIE also looking at how social innovation is carried out in different regions across Europe. SIE recently interviewed Innobasque to learn more about social innovation in the Basque Country. The following interview builds on Innobasque’s contribution to the country ... Social Innovation in the Basque Country
By SIX
April 4, 2016
Unpacking the value of social innovation in NGO’s Context At the point this project was commissioned, there was both scepticism towards, and enthusiasm for, innovation in the sector. There was also confusion about exactly what ‘social innovation’ meant. Oxfam and Bond, the UK’s membership body for international development, wanted to demystify social innovation and have ... Social innovation and international development
By Bond
April 1, 2016
Establishing a Global advisory committee for the Seoul Mayor Context With the election of Wonsoon Park as Mayor in 2011, Seoul expressed the ambition to become a ‘social innovation city’. It implemented a programme of initiatives to deepen grassroots democracy, embed civic engagement in the everyday working of the city, and began to shift the ... Establishing a Global advisory committee for the Seoul Mayor
March 31, 2016
Across the world, development and social challenges are increasingly more complex and urgent. From INGOs to community organisations to governments, finding new ways of working to meet these challenges is more of a priority than ever. The organisations that are best placed to deliver the biggest impact are those that are highly connected, that are agile ... How to be more innovative in your practice: 6 reflections from SIX and Hivos
By SIX and Hivos
March 16, 2016
We have reached a watershed moment. After a century of robust development of technological and business innovation, plus several decades of cracking the code of social innovation, the time has come to create an integrated innovation system. Innovation has long been recognized as necessary for a nation’s economic and business success. But citizens have relied ... Innovating Innovation: Connecting technological, business and social innovation
By Tim Draimin
March 15, 2016
In January 2016, a group of 25 foundations from across 4 continents came together at the Rockefeller Foundation’s New York office to learn and share insights about funding social innovation that help them tackle their most important opportunities and challenges. Although there are numerous toolkits, guides and traditional gatherings for foundations providing tips, practical suggestions ... Pushing boundaries to advance social impact
By SIX
March 9, 2016
Insights from the meeting of international foundations in January 2016: An interview with Louise Pulford, the Director of SIX. What makes this node different? This group is about the people, and I felt lucky to be in the room with such a great group. It really felt like the best were learning from the best. ... Connecting peers to push boundaries for social change – a new kind of meeting
By SIX
March 8, 2016
This originally appeared on the BRAC blog. If there were a simple recipe for social innovation, anyone could easily transform an idea into an impactful solution reaching millions. Unfortunately things are a lot messier on the ground. Many ‘amazing’ innovations that promise to save millions of lives fail to scale and quietly disappear. Who’s to blame: ... Scaling social innovation: An art or a science?
By Anjali Sarker and Maria A May, BRAC
February 26, 2016
How can mayors be more involved in driving social innovation at a city level? Social Innovation Europe recently asked Mayor Aboutaleb of Rotterdam, the Netherlands to share his insight on innovation in his city. Please allow me to say that I am so happy with the subject you have chosen for this interview. This is a subject ... Driving social innovation at a city level: Mayor Aboutaleb on Rotterdam
By Mayor Aboutaleb, the city of Rotterdam
February 15, 2016
The SIX Funders Node took place at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York in January, 2016 and was the first convention of social innovation grantmakers from three continents. Andrew Barnett, Director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s UK Branch, writes about his experience. Social Innovation should be invigorating and I returned from the SIX Funders’ Node ... Greater funder connectivity for social change: reflections on the SIX Funders Node
By Andrew Barnett, Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch)
February 9, 2016
Eddy Adams of SIX met Penny Travlou at the Unusual Suspects Festival in Glasgow, where she spoke passionately about the work she’s been involved in with refugees in Greece. As part of Social Innovation Europe’s Beyond Crisis Collection, Eddy interviewed Penny to learn more about this work of using food making and sharing to support migrant integration in Greece. To get us started, can you tell us ... Options Foodlab: How food making and sharing is supporting migrant integration in Greece
By Eddy Adams
January 26, 2016
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. Albert Einstein The last quarter century has seen significant changes in the world of foundation philanthropy. New pools of earned wealth (think Jeff Skoll, Bill Gates or Skype founder Niklas Zennström) have accelerated traditional philanthropy’s shift from responsive grantmaking towards experiments with ... Philanthropic foundations and social innovation: How do we accelerate our learning?
By Tim Draimin
January 24, 2016
This article originally appeared on the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation blog. 100 social innovators from across the world gathered together at SIX’s Summer School in Mumbai this November to discuss ‘The Connected Urban Life – How can new ways of connecting make cities better for all?’ I was in attendance to represent Battersea Arts Centre with support from ... An innovative fix – lessons from SIX Summer School Mumbai
By Liz Moreton, Battersea Arts Centre
December 9, 2015
At a stressful point before the recent SIX Mumbai Summer School, an ISDI colleague shared some words of wisdom with the team. “Just remember, it’ll be alright in the end. And if it isn’t alright, it isn’t the end yet.” We looked at him. “Wow’ what amazing insight. “Where’s that from? Gandhi? The Bhagavad Gita?…” “No, from ... Seven reasons for having faith in India’s social innovation future
By Eddy Adams
December 1, 2015
SIMPACT investigates the economic foundation of social innovation in relation to markets, public sector and institutions with the intention of providing a dynamic framework for action at the level of individuals, organisations and networks. According to SIMPACT’s understanding, social innovation refers to: novel combination of ideas and distinct forms of collaboration that transcend established institutional contexts with the effect of empowering and (re) engaging vulnerable ... Comparative Report on Social Innovation across Europe
By SIMPACT
September 3, 2015
This article was written by Tim Draimin (Executive Director, Social Innovation Generation) and is part of our SIX Global Council series on Ideas for the Future. Social Innovation’s Imperative to Be Ambitious and Think Big The world is awash with innovation reports and indices comparing the innovation prowess of different countries, cities, and corporations. The two ... Recoding Our Innovation Systems
By Tim Draimin and SIX Global Council
July 30, 2015
‘Emerging markets are where the world is changing; it’s where the future is. You have this constant dynamic of both problems as well possibilities- which is an exciting place to be. If you’re interested in innovation in any form- you want to be where things are changing and come to the cusp of where the ... Learning from Nairobi – The city as a hub for innovation
July 12, 2015
Independent social funders are an established part of a mature ecosystem of social support in the UK. They represent a ‘sector’ that is diverse in makeup and practice, with some cutting edge thinking and innovative practice sitting alongside very traditional models of funding for activities in the community. It is also a sector whose leading lights ... Supporting Social Change: A New Funding Ecology
By Dr. Henry Kippin, Collaborate
July 10, 2015
City administrations are facing a whole range of challenges on the social, environmental and economic fronts. New competences are being transferred from the national or regional levels while the budgets available to tackle them are shrinking. In this increasingly difficult context, social innovation is a new asset. Citizens are taking promising initiatives. They are inventing ... Social Innovation in Cities – URBACT report
By URBACT
June 30, 2015
The original post about this report can be found on Nesta website here. This Nesta report tells the stories of cities around the world – from Beijing to Amsterdam, and from London to Jakarta – that are addressing urban challenges by using digital technologies to engage and enable citizens. Key findings Many ‘top down’ smart city ... Rethinking Smart Cities from the Ground Up
By Tom Saunders and Peter Baeck, Nesta
June 30, 2015
How to organise and run a social lab? Lab Practice aims to share experiences from doing a social lab with elderly people in Amsteldorp by sharing methodologies and stories from both changemakers and social lab facilitators. In the face of fast moving, global, often elusive developments, national governments and their counterparts (public sector) find it ... Lab Practice: creating spaces for social change
By Kennisland
June 17, 2015
This article was written by Chris Vanstone (Director of Co-design, TACSI) and is part of our SIX Global Council series on Ideas for the Future. The commonsensical approach of doing with rather than to might just be sticking, in places. A decade and a half of work on people powered public services and a long demand ... People Powered Everything?
By Chris Vanstone and SIX Global Council
June 5, 2015
As civil society grows in post-colonial Hong Kong, participatory art has registered a heightened local consciousness, the desire to be autonomous and attempts to resist various kinds of hegemony in the 2000s and the 2010s. This essay aims to provide an empirical base for further studies by examining exemplary works, namely Complaints Choir of Hong ... Taking part: participatory art and the emerging civil society in Hong Kong
By Stephanie Cheung, University of the Arts London
June 1, 2015
Of all the bars in the world….This story starts in a bar. But not just any old bar. It’s a rooftop open-air number, straddling an uber-modern glass and steel business conglomeration. It’s a bar with a boxing ring, where two teenage Thai boxers are knocking seven bells out of one another, cheered on by boozed ... Inside India’s Smart Cities
By Eddy Adams
May 28, 2015
This article, written by Simon Willis (CEO, Young Foundation) and Jeremy Crump (Head of Strategy, Young Foundation) is part of our SIX Global Council series on Ideas for the Future. Clayton Christensen’s concept of disruptive innovation arose largely from an analysis of the industrial and product market, such as steel, manufacturing and computing. The focal point ... Disruptive Social Innovation – A political challenge
By Simon Willis, Jeremy Crump and SIX Global Council
May 8, 2015
This article was written by Geoff Mulgan (CEO, Nesta) and is part of our SIX Global Council series on Ideas for the Future. Over the last 50 years vast sums of public money have been spent supporting digital innovation in the military and business. These fuelled transformative new phenomena – from drones to mass surveillance, Amazon ... Digital Social Innovation – Future directions
By Geoff Mulgan and SIX Global Council
April 23, 2015
Transnational Network for Social Innovation Incubation – TRANSITION – is a 30-month project that supports the scaling-up of social innovations across Europe by developing a network of incubators which brings together established partners within the fields of social innovation (SI) and innovation-based incubation (IBI). TRANSITION will also provide learning output on which scaling methodologies are most ... Transnational Network for Social Innovation Incubation
By TRANSITION
April 23, 2015
This article was written by Josine Stremmelaar (Coordinator of the Knowledge Programme, Hivos) and Remko Berkhout (Consultant, Hivos) and is part of our SIX Global Council series on Ideas for the Future. The obsession with ‘superheroes of social innovation’ undermines the social fabric that is needed to achieve social change. What if we harness the power ... U Innovate Us
By Josine Stremmelaar, Remko Berkhout and SIX Global Council
April 23, 2015
Jordan Junge reflects on SIX’s recent event in Johannesburg, South Africa. Standing in a hot field in Soweto, we saw the vision for the future. There would be a juice bar in the corner, Bob Marley blasting out of the speakers, and people of all ages from the community hand picking their fruit and veg. ... 10 trends of social innovation in South Africa
By Jordan Junge
April 20, 2015
Over the last 18 months Nesta, funded by the European Commission, has led a large research project into DSI. The project seeks to define and understand the potential of DSI, to map the digital social innovators, their projects and networks, and to develop recommendations for how policymakers, from the EU to city level, can make the ... Growing a digital social innovation ecosystem for Europe
By SIE
February 20, 2015
Chief Executive of Nesta and SIX Global Council member Geoff Mulgan highlights the issue of inequality in innovation in this blog, originally published on Nesta. The relationship between innovation and inequality is rapidly moving up policy agendas. For years an implicit ‘trickle down’ theory dominated how policy makers thought. It argued that resources should be concentrated where ... Inequality and innovation: the end of another trickle down theory?
By Geoff Mulgan and SIX Global Council
February 18, 2015
How do we collaborate to create ecosystems that support innovation for systems change? On September 5, 2014, Social Innovation Generation (SiG) and Oxfam hosted one of the final sessions of the inaugural Unusual Suspects Festival at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation UK office that explored: How do we collaborate to create an ecosystem that supports innovation for systems ... Building ecosystems for systems change
By Tim Draimin & Kelsey Spitz
January 22, 2015
The international community increasingly recognises the need for new approaches to address our most pressing social challenges. In order to stimulate this innovation, this report suggests a number of approaches which policy makers can take, drawing on examples taken from around the world. The report draws on the work and findings of the TEPSIE project, a ... Growing social innovation: A guide for policy makers
By Victoria Boelman, Amy Kwan, John René Keller Lauritzen, Jeremy Millard, Rachel Schon
January 18, 2015
Social innovation has an irresistible global appeal, but is it biased towards protecting the status quo? What’s the state of play in the fast paced world of social innovation? The Unusual Suspects Festival in London seemed a good place to find out. Collaboration was the theme. The claims made were high. The stakes may be even higher. A ... Irresistibly Biased? The blind spots of social innovation
By Remko Berkhout and SIX Global Council
December 29, 2014
TEPSIE is a research project funded under the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme. One area of their project examines the extent to which, how and why, online networks and other digital tools are being used by, and having an impact on, social innovation. There is much evidence that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) substantially changes the character ... Digital technology in social innovation – TEPSIE report
By Jeremy Millard, Gwendolyn Carpenter
November 18, 2014
Insights from an event in Johannesburg which was organised by SIX and Hivos, as part of a programme of work in 2014-16 which aimed to increase exchange and learning between social innovation and international development communities across Africa. The task of reimagining relationships and thinking about system change is no easy task. The benefit of ... Reimagining relationships and changing systems in Johannesburg 
November 12, 2014
The innovation Lab Insight Centre is a joint project between The Brisdgespan Group and the Rockefeller Foundation Focussing on Labs for Systems Change, the project brought together a blog and webinar series which shares research, expert insights, and perspectives on how these labs have helped funders and nonprofit organizations create environments conducive to innovation and ... The Innovation Lab Insight Centre
By The Brisdgespan Group and the Rockefeller Foundation
November 5, 2014
Twenty years ago, Indian activist Arbind Singh pleaded with local officials to address the issues facing the urban poor. The state government of Bihar had recently carried out a massive antiencroachment drive that left thousands of street vendors without the means to earn a living. Across India, cities were being ‘beautified’—which in part meant kicking ... What does it take to scale social impact?
By Maria A. May, Amanda J. Misiti, Ishtiaque Hussain, Asif Saleh at BRAC
October 15, 2014
The Rockefeller Foundation’s Social Innovation Labs project explores what labs are and how, when, and why we might use them to address complex social problems. Many different types of organizations run labs. Some are part of larger organizations, like UNICEF Innovation Labs or the BRAC Social Innovation Lab. Others are independent, like InSTEDD. According to The Bridgespan Group, preliminary estimates indicate that ... How Social Innovation Labs Contribute to Transformative Change
By Amira Bliss at the Rockefeller Foundation
October 1, 2014
The Unusual Suspects Festival on collaboration is rapidly approaching, and we took the opportunity to speak to the Mayor Park of Seoul, well known for his collaborative approach to running the city of Seoul, about his thoughts on how we better can work together with our ‘unusual suspects’. Q1. Why do you think collaboration is important for ... Unusual Suspects Special: Seoul’s Mayor Park talks about Collaboration
By Won Soon Park
August 22, 2014
This Nesta report Making it Big: Strategies for Scaling Social Innovations aims to help social innovators consider the best options for scaling up their innovations. Key findings: Scaling isn’t for everyone. Not all innovations are scalable, and scaling brings risks. But where social innovations have potential to benefit more people, we think innovators should at least consider whether ... Making it Big: Strategies for scaling social innovations
By Madeleine Gabriel at Nesta
July 15, 2014
This article was originally posted on the Nesta blog on 24/06/2014 by Peter Baeck and Alice Casey. People are using digital technology to revolutionise how we make social impact and to develop useful new resources for everyone. Nesta knows this is happening in a wide range of ways but is often informal and community-driven which means that ... Eleven trends to watch – Digital Social Innovation
By Peter Baeck and Alice Casey
June 30, 2014
Nesta and Bloomberg Philanthropies have published the i-teams report to explore in-depth twenty innovation teams and funds from around the world. We analyse the diversity of structures and approaches, their impacts, and the key lessons for other government leaders looking to emulate these efforts. We present the new practices being developed and implemented by city ... The teams and funds making innovation happen in governments around the world
By Ruth Puttick, Peter Baeck & Philip Colligan
June 30, 2014
Louise Pulford, Director of SIX, interviewed Agnès Hubert, adviser in the Bureau of European Policy Advisers and author of the influential report ‘Empowering people, driving change: Social innovation in the European Union’ first published in 2010. Agnès has been instrumental within the Commission for championing and recognising the importance of social innovation as a pillar of ... Interview with Agnès Hubert: How has social innovation changed in Europe?
By Agnès Hubert
June 23, 2014
Corporate social innovation is an approach where corporate strategies and operating practices enhance the competitiveness of a company while simultaneously promoting economic and social well-being in the communities in which it operates. Simply put, it is about fuelling breakthrough changes in how businesses operate so that they can achieve social and environmental value creation alongside ... Breaking Through – How Corporate Social Innovation Creates Business Opportunity
By Volans, KPMG and SiG
June 9, 2014
The new study program “Master of Arts in Social Innovation” at Danube University Krems (Austria), which will start its new course on 16th of June 2014, offers a recorded version of Geoff Mulgans Webinar for all those who are interested in Social Innovation. For more informations click here.
By Geoff Mulgan
May 27, 2014
This article was originally posted on Kennisland website here. Just Lab It? Social innovation labs are ‘hallelujah-ed’ as the latest vehicles for transforming the way our cities, our schools, our welfare programs, and even our economic systems run. Yet we, lab practitioners, encounter a lack of critical literature and struggle to find learning spaces to ... Lab Matters: Challenging the practice of social innovation laboratories
By Marlieke Kieboom, Kennisland
May 27, 2014
1. The two most important things you need to focus on if you want to use innovation to change systems and shift cultures are permission and play. The third thing is performance. Permission, performance, play – that’s the trifecta you have to pull off. It’s very hard and very rare. I was reminded of this ... Permission, performance and play: shifting culture, changing systems
By Martin Stewart-Weeks
May 21, 2014
Background Based in Barcelona, Spain, ESADE is one of the world’s top business schools. ESADE’s Institute of Social Innovation want to set up a lab for social innovation. Over the past decade, there has been a surge in the number of social innovation labs globally. Some of them are connected to the public sector, others ... Designing Social Innovation Labs: ESADE, Spain
By SIX
April 26, 2014
This article was originally published on Social Innovation Generation (SiG) website. Social Innovation Generation (SiG) is a group who believes that serious social problems can be solved. Our focus is on fostering social innovation to achieve impact, durability and scale by engaging the creativity and resources of all sectors. Today, it is quite common to come ... The Scaling Imperative
By Danica Straith and Mike Gismondi
April 23, 2014
As the strategic philanthropy movement has swept across the field, many grantmakers have lost their appetite for funding experimental and innovative projects. Recently, however, a number of funders have begun exploring how to deliberately reintroduce risk-taking into their processes and portfolios in search of breakthrough change. The term “innovation” is now used so widely and ... The Re-Emerging Art of Funding Innovation
By Gabriel Kasper & Justin Marcoux for Stanford Social Innovation Review
April 17, 2014
On March 11, 2014 , SIX hosted the Global Dialogue on “Corporate Social Innovation and the Future of Capitalism“. The discussion was convened by SIX, SiG and Cisco, and chaired by Geoff Mulgan (CEO of Nesta) and it brought together people from London, Bogota, Toronto and Vancouver. The last four decades have seen important evolution in thinking about the role of ... A global discussion on Corporate Social Innovation
By SIX
March 18, 2014
This article was originally written by Geoff Mulgan on the Nesta website. In this paper, Geoff Mulgan looks at the various social and public labs across around the world. He summarises his personal view of the field of innovation labs – and what might lie ahead – largely based on Nesta experience. The report looks ... The radical’s dilemma: an overview of the practice and prospects of Social and Public Labs.
By Geoff Mulgan and SIX Global Council
February 12, 2014
In 2013, The Young Foundation and the Social Innovation Exchange (SIX) were commissioned by the national Colombian Centre for Social Innovation of ANSPE (National Agency to Overcome Extreme Poverty) to design and run a series of events on Social Innovation with a range of stakeholders. This project was supported by Compartamos con Colombia and the Inter-American Development Bank. Through ... Report: A reflection on Strengthening Social Innovation in Colombia
By Louise Pulford, Tricia Hackett & Diana Daste
February 6, 2014
What’s going right and what’s going wrong? Is design a key to more efficient and effective public services, or a costly luxury, good for conferences and consultants but not for the public? This Nesta paper looks at the elements of the design method; the strengths of current models; some of their weaknesses and the common criticisms ... Design in public and social innovation: What works and what could work better
By Geoff Mulgan, Nesta
January 8, 2014
This report was originally posted on Wilco Project. In the course of the WILCO mid-term seminar, a pioneering initiative was launched to take stock of all the research done so far within the Framework Programmes with a view on preparing for Horizon 2020. The main result of this event is the “Social innovation research in the ... Social innovation research in the European Union: Approaches, findings and future directions
By WILCO
November 20, 2013
The global field of social innovation was gathering momentum. At the time of the event, there was an Office for Social Innovation in the US, the UK Government recently appointed an Advisor to the Prime Minister on Social Innovation and the European Commission had already made significant investments in both research and practical projects which ... Social Frontiers – The next edge of social innovation research
By SIX
November 14, 2013
By Eddy Adams, URBACT expert On the business card of Won Soon Park,Seoul’s dynamic and charismatic Mayor, there is a drawing of a spoon-billed sandpiper, with the legend small but can fly further. Mr. Park is very interested in how far he and his city can fly, and if you ever wanted proof of the value ... Meeting the Seoul Man
By Eddy Adams
September 27, 2013
An interesting phenomenon is emerging worldwide: more and more people are organizing to solve daily problems together and are collaborating with each other to live more socially cohesive and sustainable lives. This active and collaborative attitude, driven by several social and economic factors, is also based on a technological pre-condition: the diffusion of technologies that ... Public and Collaborative: Exploring the Intersection of Design, Social Innovation and Public Policy
By Ezio Manzini and Eduardo Staszowski, DESIS Network
September 26, 2013
Via the Guardian Written by Marc Pfitzer and Valerie Bockstette The term “innovation” appears at least daily in Guardian Sustainable Business. That’s because innovation is the key to addressing the social and environmental challenges we face today. We need innovation to create more affordable health care services. We need innovation to bring nutritious food to every corner ... Five keys to corporate social innovation
By Marc Pfitzer and Valerie Bockstette
September 4, 2013
A report from Lab2, and why learning to reflect on our assumptions about how change happens has value, whether or not “lab” is in your title. Just add water. That was chemistry professor Justus von Liebig’s big idea. Mix hot water and powder, and voilà, you have the nutritional equivalent of beef stew. The year ... A Lab of Labs
By Sarah Schulman
August 16, 2013
This article is written by Tricia Hackett and Diana Daste as part of the Social Life of Cities series for Urban Times It’s not all about Brazil – though the media might lead you to believe otherwise. Lesser known but not less exciting things are also happening in other Latin America countries, namely Colombia. With much fanfare, Colombia’s ... At The Forefront Of Social Innovation In Latin America – Colombia
By Tricia Hackett and Diana Daste
August 7, 2013
This Article is written by Zoe Spiliopoulou as part of the Social Life of Cities Series for Urban Times. For the past five years austerity measures have taken a heavy toll on everyday life in Greece. Despite this, as a Greek citizen, I feel that Greeks have strong social bonds and networks that are closely linked ... Athens: Social Unity Through Urban Crisis
By Zoe Spiliopoulou
August 7, 2013
Walking with Park: Exploring the ‘reframing’ and integration of CPTED principles in neighbourhood regeneration in Seoul, South Korea. Adam Thorpe (70%), Reader in Socially Responsive Design and Co-Director of the Design Against Crime Research Centre, University of the Arts London. Lorraine Gamman (30%), Professor of Design Against Crime and Director of the Design Against Crime ... Walking with Park – Designing against Crime in Cities
By Adam Thorpe and Lorraine Gamman
August 7, 2013
The current interest in tackling the challenge of measuring social innovation is driven by at least two factors. First, there is undoubtedly a need for tackling long standing as well as new social challenges and meeting current social needs more effectively. The means of choice for doing so is social innovation. Thereby, and this leads ... Paving the way to measurement – TEPSIE report
By Björn Schmitz, Gorgi Krlev, Georg Mildenberger, Eva Bund & David Hubrich
June 30, 2013
The reality of day-to-day organizational work is that we tend to rely on typical strategies to achieve outcomes. An innovation mindset challenges key ideas about the traditional ways of working in social sector organizations, the importance of asking challenging questions and gathering data to better understand the complexity of social sector work, and the need ... Project Innovation: the Social Innovation Toolkit
By SIX
June 27, 2013
Eddy Adam FRSA has spent the past year looking at how cities can innovate in addressing the challenges they face in the 21st century. Central to this is how cities can better learn from one another. Buddhists believe that on the eve of Buddha’s birth, his mother dreamt that a white elephant gave her a ... How Cities Learn
By Eddy Adams
May 22, 2013
In the latest issue of The Business Incubator, Allyson Hewitt introduces us to the concept of corporate social innovation. The article is a welcome demonstration that social innovation thinking is emerging into the mainstream. A young animator had figured out a new way to streamline the animation process. He approached the Information technology, Communications and ... Good Business
By Allyson Hewitt
April 16, 2013
Sarah Schulman, Kennisland – 11.04.2013 Sarah Schulman, an expert member of the SIX community with a background in Co-design processes–and a visiting scholar at Kennisland in the Netherlands–takes a long look at the systems that structure–and constrain–our lives and daily actions, as well as the processes, politics, and people that create our shared idea of ... ‘Good’ systems, for whom?
By Sarah Schulman
April 16, 2013
In an article for Public Servant Magazine, Geoff Mulgan explains why Nesta is promoting social innovation in the UK and how SIX brings together innovators from around the world. For the last 14 years Nesta has been working to help people and organisations bring great ideas to life across a wide range of fields – ... Public Sector Social Innovation: It’s time we changed some old habits
By Geoff Mulgan
February 21, 2013
The field of innovation for social purposes is developing rapidly all over the world, with new institutions and methods, growing confi dence and evidence of impact. Social innovators are changing the way governments work, the way civil society achieves impact, and the actions of business. Social innovations are new ideas, institutions, or ways of working ... Financing Social Impact: Funding Social Innovation in Europe
November 9, 2012
By Johanna Mair While Western societies increasingly recognize social innovation, and its importance for the growth and well being of communities, there is still a wide gap between the scale of the problems we face and the scale of the available solutions. Businesses spend big money on innovation, but governments spend far less on systematically ... Social Innovation: International Practices for Diffusion and Policymaking
By Zainab Reza
July 30, 2012
Participatory, user-centric approaches to solving problems are gaining momentum as alternatives to traditional organizations. Among these approaches is the innovation Lab, a creative, multi-disciplinary environment that employs a proven and repeatable protocol to seek disruptive, potentially systems-tipping solutions. Labs: Designing the Future, published in 2012, examines the Lab’s roots in complexity, networked collaboration and design ... Labs: Designing the future
By Lisa Torjman
June 18, 2012
This report was prepared by the Young Foundation, as part of the TEPSIE project. These ten points summarise the reports findings: an understanding and analysis of social innovation, namely what it is, where and how it takes place as well as core features and common elements. 1. The field of social innovation is broad and varied. It ... Defining social innovation – A 2012 report by TEPSIE
By Julie Caulier-Grice, Anna Davies, Robert Patrick & Will Norman
May 31, 2012
Today would have been Diogo Vasconcelos’s birthday. Our present to him is our commitment to social innovation, and our official announcement that SIX will become an independent entity this year. A thriving independent SIX was something Diogo felt strongly about, and something he has helped us to achieve. Over the last year we have made significant progress ... Remembering Diogo Vasconcelos
By Kine Nordstokka
May 16, 2012
Against the context of rapid economic, social and environmental change, a collective reflection is taking place on how to build more sustainable routes to share prosperity. In the meantime, an increasing number and wide range of change-makers have already found ways to imagine and grow a different economy in our cities, towns, neighbourhoods and villages. ... Compendium for the civic economy
By Nesta, the Design Council and Architecture 00
January 11, 2012
Recently, I interviewed Paul Carttar, Director of the Social Innovation Fund–an initiative of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) intended to improve the lives of people in low-income communities. It does so by mobilizing public and private resources to grow promising, innovative community-based solutions that have evidence of compelling impact in three areas ... The Obama Administration’s Social Innovation Fund:An In-depth Interview with Director Paul Carttar
By Connor Friesen
January 6, 2012
The City of Malmo is conducting a pre-study investigation funded by the European Commission into how they might establish a series of ‘Innovation forums’ in four deprived areas of the city. They see it as a method to generate new ideas and develop real solutions to some of Malmo’s social problems through inclusive processes well-rooted ... City of Malmo: Innovation forums and incubating social innovation
By Kine Nordstokka
December 7, 2011
The In Studio: Recipes for Systematic Change book explores a particular Strategic Design method that we at Sitra call the HDL Studio Model. It’s a unique way of bringing together the right people, a carefully framed problem, a supportive place, and an open-ended process to craft holistic vision and sketch the pathway towards strategic improvement. ... In Studio: Recipes for Systematic Change
By Konstantin Lazutin
September 12, 2011
Andrew Wolk is the Founder and CEO of Root Cause. The establishment of the Social Innovation Fund last year marked a great milestone for the field of social innovation in the United States. As the Corporation for National and Community Service is receiving applications for its 2011 Notice of Funds Opportunity, I want to share ... A Social Issue-Based Approach to Finding and Funding Social Innovation
By Adam Hart
March 15, 2011
“Consequences” is a British parlour game. The game is very simple – everyone begins with a piece of paper and a pen. On the piece of paper is the following list: man’s name, woman’s name, place name, he said to her, she said to him, the consequence was (a description of what happened after), an ... SIX – A global game of consequences
By Louise Pulford
February 7, 2011
A really interesting article from the “Inspired Economist” site (http://inspiredeconomist.com) Yesterday’s extensive feature in The New York Times business section on Google.org’s (http://www.google.org/) failure to match its own lofty social innovation goals is a must read for anyone interested in the intersection of philanthropy, corporate social responsibility and information technology. The piece chronicles Google’s philanthropic ... The Failure of Google’s “Do No Evil” Approach to Social Innovation
By Adam Hart
February 4, 2011
SIX and the Young Foundation were commissioned by the Bureau of European Policy Advisors at the European Commission to a study of social innovation in Europe, and to suggest some priorities for action. The paper sets out the current position, policies, programmes and future options for promoting social innovation in Europe. Its primary focus is ... First Study on Social Innovation for BEPA
June 10, 2010
The Open Book of Social Innovation looks at ways to design, develop and grow social innovation.
By Robin Murray, Julie Caulier-Grice, Geoff Mulgan
March 1, 2010
The Basque region is the proposed setting for the world’s first ‘social Silicon Valley’. Alison Benjamin meets two Spaniards intent on creating a post-industrial revolution High in the hills of Spain’s Basque region, an experiment is taking place that could determine how we tackle social problems in the future. At a time when governments, economists ... Small is powerful
By Louise Pulford
January 15, 2009
This article originally appeared on The Guardian What makes a city buzz? The most dynamic cities have always been immersed in the critical innovations of their time. Today, the world’s great cities compete to lead in innovation in fields such as nanotechnology or genomics, sometimes successfully, sometimes with ineffective copycat strategies. Science and business have ... Our creative minds need to be harnessed
By Geoff Mulgan
October 1, 2008
Based on a review of case studies and current innovation theory and practice, proposes a framework integrating best practices, processes, and tools for making innovation a more consistent and integral element of philanthropy. Lists models and resources.
By Gabriel Kasper
August 27, 2008
The original article appeared on The Guardian Social innovation is the new global obsession. It might be a nebulous idea but it has huge potential. Lord Darzi, following his review of the NHS, is so enamoured of its powers that he’s set aside a £50m annual budget to encourage its spread. Governments in Singapore, Denmark and ... New ways of doing
By Yvonne Roberts
August 11, 2008
This report is about how social innovations spread and grow. It aims to provide a theoretically and empirically grounded guide for the many people involved in social innovation: innovators, funders, policy-makers and commissioners. It draws on a growing body of research on patterns of growth, and distils its conclusions into a guide to help direct ... In and out of sync: The challenge of growing social innovations
By Geoff Mulgan with Rushanara Ali, Richard Halkett and Ben Sanders
September 1, 2007