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Vienna.
The final plenary session at Challenge Social Innovation 2011 for today begins with Geoff Mulgan, whose brief is to outline a range of social innovation theories. He begins by posing a question: how do we know whether such theories are right or wrong? How can we test them – especially perhaps in such an emerging, novel field? Social innovation seeks to address certain problem areas – poverty, climate change, social exclusions, … –, and so by its nature is a sprawling field; the questions we must always come back to are what do we need to know, and how …

Vienna.
The second plenary speaker in this session at Challenge Social Innovation 2011 is Frank Moulaert. He begins by suggesting that much of the interdisciplinary work on social innovation has not been properly recognised, or has even been gently censored. But why is this the case?

We must work towards a shared analytical framework, but this can only happen through an open and wide-ranging discussion of where social innovation research should be going. Research on social innovation goes back to the early days of social science (Weber, Durkheim, Schumpeter, …); such work was synthesised in France (and in French) during …

Vienna.
The next session at Challenge Social Innovation 2011 is a plenary which begins with Uwe Schneidewind. he notes that we’re at the intersection of technological and social innovations, and technology still continues to drive things rather too much; but social innovation is gradually growing in importance. This is also because the marginal benefits of purely technological innovations – improving efficiency, for example – are declining, due to rebound effects: the relevant effects of technological innovations are quickly absorbed by the dynamics of the overall system.

Cost savings from cheaper lightbulbs are absorbed by the fact that cheaper costs lead …

Vienna.
Finally in this session at Challenge Social Innovation 2011 we move on to Edeltraud Hanappi-Egger, who highlights the question of gender in social innovation – who has a voice and who doesn’t in defining this space? How could gender be incorporated into social innovation, then?

Edeltraud notes for example the impact of microloan schemes on the independence and empowerment of women in upper Egypt – there was significant improvement at the individual level, and women who began to run their own businesses gained a higher status in their families, but at the same time, gender hierarchies in households and …

Vienna.
This session at Challenge Social Innovation 2011 continues with Ilan Chabay, who is interested in connecting humanities and other research. He begins by noting an experiment in guerilla science which he’s been involved in since the mid-90s: this put hands-on science exhibits in public spaces from McDonald’s restaurants to cruise ships, and turned out to be very popular as well as to generate educational outcomes.

If we want social innovation, then, he says, this also implies social change: changes in artefacts, functions, organisation, and practice; changes in behaviours at a collective scale; changes in diverse cultures where any one …

Vienna.
The next Challenge Social Innovation 2011 speaker is Maurice Biriotti, who’s moved from the academy into private business; he still thinks that the humanities are the richest source of problem-solving of all the areas he’s worked with. Humanities scholars are genuinely innovative, most of the time, and the humanities can be used to drive the process of innovation.

He describes this through a practical example: some years ago, when his company did some corporate work in Mexico, he became interested in the nature of conversations in rural Mexico; there, there are many people who are HIV-positive, but this is …

Vienna.
The next speaker at Challenge Social Innovation 2011 is Sean Ryder, who begins by noting the idea that more humanities funding should be channelled to the way cultures communicate with each other, and that such research could significantly address social innovation. More broadly, though, what can humanities research tell us about innovation? It can take historical, philosophical, and cultural perspectives on the causes, processes, and consequences of innovation; it can highlight the contextuality of the meaning of innovation; it can point to the fact that knowledge can never be disinterested, but is always culturally embedded; it can show innovation …

Vienna.
The second day at Challenge Social Innovation 2011 has begun, and I’m in a session on the contribution of humanities research to the question of social innovation. Chair Milena Žic Fuchs begins by noting that the humanities play a critical role to the development of critical and independent thought, as well as a range of other important contributions made in this space (and I’m afraid I’m not quite sure whether these were simply opening remarks or a proper paper, so I’ve not blogged a great deal of this…).

Co-chair Rüdiger Klein now takes over by suggesting that humanities …

Vienna.
The final speaker in this session at Challenge Social Innovation is Ricard Ruiz de Querol, who begins by noting the major social challenges we currently face; in addition, we also have some very major social media platforms – his interest is in the overlap and connection between them. A third element is the realm of social innovation, which intersects both areas.

Social media is an umbrella term for a wide range of possible tools, platforms, and practices; even individual platforms like Twitter sustain a universe of applications and practices. Where do we start? How can and do developments – …

Vienna.
The next speakers at Challenge Social Innovation are Christoph Kaletka, Ricard Ruiz de Querol, and Bastian Pelka, who are presenting nothing short of a manifesto for social media and social innovation. Social media, Bastian starts, are not a technology, but a specific form of using existing technology: a social innovation. Social media is an umbrella term for a rapidly growing set of practices and platforms, which are based around the core innovation of user-generated content as a new social routine.

Social media, then, describe a new communication pattern (a paradigm shift in communication), which replaces finished communicative processes …