Business

“Social innovations are new ideas (products, services and models) that simultaneously meet social needs (more effectively than alternatives) and create new social relationships or collaborations.” - The Social Innovation eXchange (SIX) and the Young Foundation for the Bureau of European Policy Advisors.

There is a growing recognition that Social Innovation has a crucial role to play in economic development. This shift in focus will have a significant impact on many areas including research and knowledge transfer and will inevitably lead to a sea-change in the way we deliver and measure our activities over the coming years.

To address these developments, Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) seeks to define and characterise Social Innovation but also to challenge its emergence as an important focus of policymaking, especially within Europe.

The Social Innovation Network based at GCU is a mechanism through which academics, practitioners, policymakers, citizens and other stakeholders can access support information, collaborate on projects or funding bids, debate and discuss social innovation issues, update news and events information, and access research and academic literature on social innovation.

With a growing network of Scottish and international researchers, practitioners and policy makers we are attempting to respond to some of the major issues surrounding social innovation:

• How can universities support social innovation?

• How might social innovation shape the research agenda?

• How can social innovation be measured, scaled-up, transferred or sustained?

• How does the EU conceive of and promote social innovation?

• How can social innovation support policy-making in tackling key-problems like youth unemployment ?

• What role can Scotland play in developing its own social innovation agenda?

• How social innovation can support Scottish authorities and government?

For more information about Social Innovation at GCU, contact Mark Anderson or Victoria Leyton on 0141 331 8884.