A complex-systems perspective on the role of universities in social innovation

Ola Tjörnbo and Katharine McGowan

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2022, vol. 174, issue C

Abstract: A lack of agreement on what is included in social innovation processes and outcomes has not stopped universities in exploring their possible role(s) in the phenomena; yet these efforts have largely replicated existing approaches to technological and business innovation, which is ill-aligned with much current scholarship in social innovation. We argue that universities’ social innovation support should emerge from the lessons of social innovation scholarship itself: specifically, we assert based on cross-case analysis that universities have important roles in: providing the space for initial discovery or descriptions of new phenomena and ways of doing; destabilizing the dominant system arrangements; supporting niches for idea generation and development; sustaining shadow networks for emergent innovations and innovators; and leveraging cross-scale networks to facilitate social innovation growth. While these examples are pulled from history, they provide a potential set of road maps for social innovation programming at universities, some of which is consistent with current work but others that will require serious re-examination and redevelopment of universities’ roles in the broader social innovation ecosystem.

Keywords: Social innovation; Universities; Historical case studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:174:y:2022:i:c:s0040162521006818

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121247

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