Social Innovation Light on the Hill to Tackle Disadvantage or Just Another Fad? Dorothy Pearce Address 2007 Professor Da

1. Social Innovation Light on the Hill to Tackle Disadvantage or Just Another Fad? Dorothy Pearce Address 2007 Professor David Adams

2. Five Phases in Development of Community Sector Internationally Competition for souls ---up till the early 1900’s Charity for the indigent---1910 -1950’s Sweeping after the market --- 1950’s – 1970’s Contract for services --- 1980’s – 1990’s Social investment and innovation --- 2000 +

3. What is social innovation? ‘New ideas to create social value’ Three key components • New idea ( but can be made up from old ones) • Useful ( addresses a risk or opportunity) • Adopted and diffused ( scaled up and implemented)

4. Five Features of the Social Innovation Approach • From needs to assets • Revaluing of community as a social agent • Community sector as an industry • Emergence of community enterprises • Partnerships across sectors for sustainability

5. Why social innovation matters • Relative failure of traditional approaches • New ideas about enabling conditions and how innovation can be accelerated • Theory and practice underdeveloped compared to economic innovation -yet many similarities

6. Social Innovation Stages • Enabling conditions • Invention • Adoption • Diffusion and take up • Spillovers

7. Similarities with new ideas about economic innovation Networks and ‘connectors’ or intermediaries Role of trust relations Place based focus ( local/global dynamic) Governance of innovation systems ‘Creative destruction’ Distributed leadership Diversity of sources of innovation

8. But some important differences • Social value often less clear than shareholder value • Limited research on social innovation • Limited tools applied ( eg hubs/ incubators/ • Techno-parks/ ‘redi maps’) • Timeframes often longer • More heuristic ( learn as you go) • Social entrepreneurship still developing

9. Social innovators good at: • Network building • Leveraging trust relations • Mobilising community mandate • Extracting social value • Understanding local people assets

10. Economic innovators good at: • Product development • Financing • Commercialisation • Marketing • Creating shareholder value

11. New knowledge about how social innovation happens • Often at the intersections within and between sectors • Where tacit knowledge is valued and ‘co-produced’ • Where persistence and energy matters • Builds on understanding of local assets • Not often through R&D – more often through energy and opportunity and insight

12. Four advantages for Tasmania • Nimble across sectors because of scale/scope • Local government generally well connected into local community • Corporate social responsibility on the rise but underutilised in Tasmania • Groundwork for social innovation in place ( eg Tasmanian Young Leaders Group)

13. International strategies driving innovation • Moving away from subsidising declining sectors; • Moving towards strategic investment to develop assets (eg human capital); • Moving away from sectoral policy towards territorial approaches (eg regional tourism, social inclusion plans such as ‘A Fairer Victoria’); • Developing clusters – co-operation meets competition • Focus on incremental, customer driven innovation • Focus on governance of innovation systems

14. Revaluing of Community as a Social Agent • Meeting places & spaces • Shaping identity, security & freedom • Site of learning & judgement & support • reservoir of social capital ( eg volunteers) • Wellspring of enterprise & creativity

15. Understanding assets

16. Getting the real story

19. Some interesting correlations • Perceptions of safety with local government areas • Birthweight with GDP per worker • Arts networks with sustainable business start ups • Innovation with persistence and learning • Year 12 completion rates with everything • Social capital with educational status, imprisonment rates and innovation

20. Sustainable Communities Legislation • Embedding in legislation a range of processes for governments and business to better manage with communities risks and opportunities around growth, decline and regeneration

21. Leadership Academy • Links civic, social, economic leadership • Builds on good work to date ( eg Young Leaders Group; Young Professionals) • Can be place focused ( especially for at risk areas) • A form of social inclusion and a focus on social inclusion– galvanise action • Focus on community enterprises, asset building and sector capacity building • Distributed rather than ‘heroic’ model

22. A Strategic Focus • governments, business, community, the university, can engage in sustained strategic discussion of Tasmania’s challenges and opportunities informed by a stream of rigorous, locally-based empirical research addressing Tasmania’s specific issues. • Committed, cumulative process of ‘deep’ learning across sectors • Simultaneously promoting a broader base of emerging leaders

23. Summary • Social innovation a new field of research and public policy but an old field of practice • Can be shaped and accelerated (eg leadership) • And conjoined with new ideas about creating economic, environmental and and civic value ( eg community sustainability) • Tasmania well positioned to be in the lead –but needs concerted effort not serendipity • Community sector capability to be a key player