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Home Courses Smart and Sustainable Cities: New Ways of Digitalization & Governance Course materials Lectures 2.4.1 What is Social Innovation?

2.4.1 What is Social Innovation?

Course subject(s) Module 2. Addressing sustainability challenges

Another important aspect of Smart Sustainable Cities is the application of Social Innovation. Innovation is a broad term that can be referred to as a process, a result, an improvement, or something new for a user. The Social Innovation concept is still under development, but among different definitions, it is generally understood to be focused on meeting neglected social needs. Therefore, Social Innovation can be implemented to tackle inequalities in society.

In this section, we highlight three dimensions of social innovation:

  • Satisfaction of human needs that are not currently satisfied,
  • Changes in social relations, especially concerning governance,
  •  Increasing the socio-political capability and access to resources.

In the following video, Prof. Dr. Ana Clarissa Santos introduces the concept of Social Innovation and discusses its potential in our society. She also explains the three social innovation domains in more detail and presents some applications of social innovation considering three different cases.

Social Innovation: concept and particularities

Main Takeaways
  • Social Innovation alleviates the effects of social exclusion and challenges the curtains that lead to exclusions of the most diverse orders within and beyond the territories where they occur (Moulaert & MacCallum, 2019);
  • Meeting neglected social demands is a significant motivation and a fundamental point of Social Innovation;
  • Most times, the solution to mitigate or change an adverse social condition involves a simple idea with the potential for replication in the most varied contexts, considering its particularities.
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