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

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.