Social Innovation is comprised of new strategies, concepts, or ideas that transform policy and practices especially as they relate to the development or extension of civil society.

Such actions may be new responses to unmet needs for products and services or better ways of meeting existing needs (social entrepreneurship), In other forms, or they may result in incremental changes in practice or they may bring about large scale changes in policy.

Social innovation concerns improved quality of life, and may relate to social welfare, working conditions, employment, or community development. It can take place within government, within companies, or within the nonprofit (also known as the third sector) sector.

History

Social innovation marked a dramatic comeback in 1970s through the works of French scholars Pierre Rosanvallon, Jacques Fournier, and Jacques Attali Chambon, J.-L, David, A. and Devevey, J.-M (1982), Les Innovations Sociales, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris . However, the themes and concepts in social innovation have existed long before that. Benjamin Franklin suggested social innovation in terms of small modifications within the social organisation of communities Mumford, M.D. (2002) Social Innovation: Ten Cases from Benjamin Franklin, Creativity Research Journal, 14(2), 253-266 , considering it as a solution to concrete life problems. At the turn of the twentieth century, Max Weber and Émile Durkheim referred to the transformations of social relations, or of social organisation within political and economic communities. Subsequently, Joseph Schumpeter with his theory of innovation integrated an ensemble of artistic cultural, economic, and political sociologies to allow for the analysis of processes and diffusion of social innovation.

Social Innovation and Territorial Development

Social innovation in terms of territorial (or regional) development is defined in two interrelated ways: first, innovation in the meaning of the social economy, i.e. strategies for satisfaction of human needs; and second, innovation in the sense of transforming and/or sustaining social relations, especially the governance relations at the regional and local level. A combination of both the modes provides a comprehensive approach to innovation in social and economic dynamics within territories. In Europe, from the late 1980s, research on social innovation from a territorial perspective was initiated by Jean-Louis Laville Laville, J.-L. (Ed.) (1994) L’économie solidaire, une perspective internationale, Desclée de Brouwer, Paris and Frank Moulaert Moulaert, F. and Sekia, F. (2003) Territorial Innovation Models: a Critical Survey, Regional Studies, 37(3), 289-302 and has been going on since then. In Canada CRISES was initiator of this type of research.

The first large scale research project to work on territorial innovation analysis was SINGOCOM Social Innovation, Governance, and Community Building a European Commission Framework 5 project (2002-2004), that offered wide ranging discussions on Alternative Models for Local Innovation (ALMOLIN).

Some noted scholars of Social Innovation

• Jean-Louis Laville
• Frank Moulaert