No more PDF's! The Role of Social Innovation Research and The Academy.

Social Innovation is NOT about creating NEW solutions

Prensentation by Fredrik Björk, Malmö University.
First of all, Social Innovation is NOT about creating NEW solutions. We need to experiment, Fredrik strained. Solutions are the Fairy tale TRAP of Social Innovation, we need INTERVENTIONS of Change, no more PDF’s.

Fredrik has done research on Civic Soultions Labs in Canada, Sweden and US, and he is convinced framing the ability to create an interventional, open and dialogue based Lab-Model is the way ahead. But we also need to bring researchers into the field of Social Labs, as they can provide mediation, critical perspectives, legitimacy, methodological knowledge and access to research within the labs.

Fredrik is a lecturer in Environmental Science at the Department of Urban Studies. Between 2010-2012 he was programme coordinator for the Leadership For Sustainability master’s programme at Malmö University, and between 2012-2013 responsible for research coordination at the Forum for Social Innovation Sweden. He is a board member of the Center for Public Entrepreneurship; the Swedish SROI Network and the social enterprise Yalla Trappan. Fredrik made some very interesting remarks on the role of the Academy in Social Innovation research

At the present there is a high focus – in Denmark as well – on the need for more “relevant” faculties, participatory action/research and production of knowledge within the field of Social Innovation. In Fredriks perspective, sustainability is about reaching the gap between users and experts. The “Dissemination of Knowledge”, as he put it.

We need to get away from the “project programming approach” to creating intervention based experimental and action-oriented research and Social Innovation frames. Think innovatively about which researchers you’d like to involve in a collaborative process. Researchers are also practitioners!

Fredriks presentation was highly inspiring and usefull. Thank You Fredrik!