Change Lab/Design Lab for Social Innovation

How to create, organize and fund a Design La

Constructing The Evolution of Social Innovation: Methodological Insights from a Multi-Case Study

In this paper, we discuss our methodological challenges we encountered in creating our multi-case volume, The Evolution of Social Innovation. In applying social innovation to eight different historical periods and problem domains, we needed to justify our choices according to our hypothesis of the crucial role of new social phenomena in sparking transformative change; we also utilized visualization techniques to further our comparison and theoretical explorations, and; embracing the ambiguity of social innovation. Resolving these methodological challenges confirmed the importance of a research journey that is responsive to the initial question or hypothesis, not limited by conventional, or discipline boundaries, when exploring social innovation

Our future in the Anthropocene biosphere

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed an interconnected and tightly coupled globalized world in rapid change. This article sets the scientific stage for understanding and responding to such change for global sustainability and resilient societies. We provide a systemic overview of the current situation where people and nature are dynamically intertwined and embedded in the biosphere, placing shocks and extreme events as part of this dynamic; humanity has become the major force in shaping the future of the Earth system as a whole; and the scale and pace of the human dimension have caused climate change, rapid loss of biodiversity, growing inequalities, and loss of resilience to deal with uncertainty and surprise. Taken together, human actions are challenging the biosphere foundation for a prosperous development of civilizations. The Anthropocene reality—of rising system-wide turbulence—calls for transformative change towards sustainable futures. Emerging technologies, social innovations, broader shifts in cultural repertoires, as well as a diverse portfolio of active stewardship of human actions in support of a resilient biosphere are highlighted as essential parts of such transformations. © 2021, The Author(s)

Our future in the Anthropocene biosphere.

Funder: Kjell och Märta Beijers Stiftelse; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100006353Funder: Familjen Erling-Perssons Stiftelse; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100007436Funder: Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100011898Funder: Stockholm UniversityThe COVID-19 pandemic has exposed an interconnected and tightly coupled globalized world in rapid change. This article sets the scientific stage for understanding and responding to such change for global sustainability and resilient societies. We provide a systemic overview of the current situation where people and nature are dynamically intertwined and embedded in the biosphere, placing shocks and extreme events as part of this dynamic; humanity has become the major force in shaping the future of the Earth system as a whole; and the scale and pace of the human dimension have caused climate change, rapid loss of biodiversity, growing inequalities, and loss of resilience to deal with uncertainty and surprise. Taken together, human actions are challenging the biosphere foundation for a prosperous development of civilizations. The Anthropocene reality-of rising system-wide turbulence-calls for transformative change towards sustainable futures. Emerging technologies, social innovations, broader shifts in cultural repertoires, as well as a diverse portfolio of active stewardship of human actions in support of a resilient biosphere are highlighted as essential parts of such transformations

Renewal and Resilience: the role of social innovation in building institutional resilience

No Abstract African Health Sciences Vol. 8 Special Edition 2008: pp. S4

The complex forms of the religious life : a Durkheimian view of new religious movements

Note:In 1898 Durkheim predicted that religion in modern complex societies would express and hold sacred what human beings still had in common: their common humanity. This dissertation combines Durkheim's theory with data gathered in the Montreal area in order to analyse groups corresponding to his "cult of man." Included in this sample are ‘‘transpersonal" groups such as est, Psychosynthesis and Arica, whose beliefs and organization are compared to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement and to Canadian harmonial cults. Not only are belief and organization related in each case, but "cult of man" groups are shown to represent a distinct development, sensitive to the technological urban environment. Members’ experience of personal and social flux is expressed in their beliefs and rituals. The latter act to protect members from the dangers of such a flux, and to empower them to master and survive it. While such groups may have few implications for a new ethic, they do represent an ingenious adaptation to modern life.En 1898 Durkheim avait prédit que la religion, dans les sociétés complexes modernes, exprimerait et sacraliserait ce que les êtres humains avaient encore en commun: leur humanité commune. Cet essai englobe la théorie de Durkheim et les données recueillies dans la région montréalaise de façon à analyser les groupes correspondant à son "culte de l'homme." Nous avons inclus dans cet échantillon des groupes ‘‘transpersonnels'' tels que est, Psychosynthesis et Arica. Nous avons établi un parallèle entre les croyances et l'organisation de ces groupes et celles du mouvement catholique du Renouveau Charismatique et des "cultes de l'harmonie." La croyance et l'organisation sont non seulement reliées dans chaque cas, mais nous avons démontré que les groupes apparentes au "culte de l'homme" représentant une évolution distincte, sensible à l'environnement technologique urbain. [...

Experiments in Consilience : Integrating Social and Scientific Responses to Save Endangered Species

xiv + 394 hlm., 23 cm

Journal of Social Entrepreneurship Enabling Social Innovation through Developmental Social Finance Enabling Social Innovation through Developmental Social Finance

ABSTRACT This paper explores social finance as a strategy for generating social innovations and, at the same time, financial returns. It explores why risk assessment for social finance is so challenging and suggests three sources of difficulty: setting boundaries, integrating heterogeneous values, and responding with sufficient speed and flexibility to support innovation. It suggests links between the seemingly distinct challenges of social finance being able to maximize its impact at different stages of the innovation process in a complex socio-ecological system, whilst also acting as a reframing agent in terms of the understanding of the system itself at other stages. Finally, this paper develops a new concept 'developmental impact investing' as a modified version of a portfolio strategy that uses a range of projects both to manage risk and to generate new knowledge about the complex systems in which the social finance attempts to create impact and innovation