Keynote Presentation : Innovation Policy in the Era of Multiple Crises - Shaping Societal Futures with Social Innovation

With Jürgen Howaldt, Social Research Center Dortmund (Germany)

Social Innovation has increasingly been attracting attention in recent years. As a novel approach to address complex problems in global health, social care, education, energy, and environmental policies, social innovation has been embraced by stakeholders and communities on the local, regional, and national level. The dynamics of this development and the widespread uptake of social innovation in the international discourse on innovation policy and innovation research are also reflected in the increasing number of (public) programs that initiate, support and analyse social innovation. Interest in social innovation in different policy arenas has grown, particularly since the global financial crisis in the mid-2000s.

Against this background, the presentation focuses on the role of social innovation in times of multiple and deepening crises which increasingly affect all areas of social life. At the heart of the reorientation of innovation policy in the European Union lies the assumption that social innovations can significantly contribute to overcoming major societal challenges. This also involves the contribution of social innovations to strengthening the resilience of the social order.

This is linked to a second perspective on social innovation: its role in shaping social change and societal transformation. This perspective becomes more important when it becomes clear that the established practices and institutions are no longer able to solve the problems but, in the contrary, create and reinforce them.

Thus, social innovation has become the focal point of a new understanding of innovation that opens up to society and is supported by the interaction of diverse actors from civil society, business, politics and science, who work on the development of new social practices and institutions - from different sectoral perspectives and with diverging objectives, but often in a co-creative way. In this sense, social innovation can be seen as a new mode of social change and social transformation that is becoming increasingly important in view of the failure of the market and politics.