European Planning Studies

ISSN: 0965-4313 (Print) 1469-5944 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceps20

A comprehensive concept of social innovation

and its implications for the local context – on
the growing importance of social innovation
ecosystems and infrastructures

Dmitri Domanski, Jürgen Howaldt & Christoph Kaletka

To cite this article: Dmitri Domanski, Jürgen Howaldt & Christoph Kaletka (2019): A
comprehensive concept of social innovation and its implications for the local context – on the
growing importance of social innovation ecosystems and infrastructures, European Planning
Studies, DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2019.1639397

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2019.1639397

Published online: 11 Jul 2019.

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EUROPEAN PLANNING STUDIES
https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2019.1639397

A comprehensive concept of social innovation and its

implications for the local context – on the growing importance of
social innovation ecosystems and infrastructures
Dmitri Domanski, Jürgen Howaldt and Christoph Kaletka
Sozialforschungsstelle Dortmund, Central Scientific Institute of TU Dortmund University, TU Dortmund
University, Dortmund, Germany

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The significance of social innovations for successfully meeting social, New innovation paradigm;
economic, political and environmental challenges of the twenty-first social innovation theory;
century is recognized not only by stakeholders on the local, regional social practices; urban
development; social
and even national level but also within the Europe 2020 strategy
innovation ecosystems; social
and on a global scale. However, despite this growing awareness, innovation infrastructures
for a long time a sustained and systematic analysis of social
innovation, its theories, characteristics and impacts was missing. In
this setup, the paper seeks to contribute to a common theoretical
ground in social innovation theory by elaborating on a
comprehensive concept of social innovation grounded in social
theory and discusses consequences for social innovations in the
urban context. The paper starts with an outline of theoretical
foundations of social innovation and investigates the relationship
between social innovation and social change. It then discusses the
consequences of a comprehensive concept of social innovation
for the local level, highlighting its multi-sectoral perspective.
Social innovation ecosystems are introduced as an emerging
theoretical approach and heuristic model especially for urban
social innovation. Here, results of a global mapping conducted by
the international research project SI-DRIVE provide empirical
insights into the diversity and current state of social innovation
initiatives.

1. Introduction
As of today, there is a growing consensus among practitioners, policy makers and the
research community that technological innovations alone are not capable of overcoming
the social and economic challenges modern societies are facing. The importance of social
innovation successfully addressing social, economic, political and environmental chal-
lenges of the twenty-first century has been recognized not only within the Europe 2020
strategy but also on a global scale.1 Recent years have seen this new form of innovation
emerging, both as an object of research and development: Social innovations appear in
a variety of forms and influence our lives (see Howaldt, Schröder, Kaletka, Rehfeld, &

CONTACT Christoph Kaletka christoph.kaletka@tu-dortmund.de Sozialforschungsstelle Dortmund, Central Scien-

tific Institute of TU Dortmund University, Evinger Platz 17, 44339 Dortmund, Germany
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 D. DOMANSKI ET AL.

Terstriep, 2016). They change the way we live together, travel, work or handle crises, and
they are driven by different societal sectors and cross-sectoral networks.
The task of understanding and unlocking the potential of social innovation is on the
research and policy agenda alike: While ‘in recent years, social innovation has become
increasingly influential in both scholarship and policy’ (Moulaert, MacCallum,
Mehmood, & Hamdouch, 2013b, p. 1), for a long time there was no sustained and sys-
tematic analysis of social innovation, its theories, characteristics and impacts. A plethora
of subject matters and problem dimensions as well as expectations for resolving them have
been subsumed under the heading ‘social innovation’ without always making clear distinc-
tions between different social and economic meanings, the conditions governing its incep-
tion, its genesis, spread and uptake, and without clearly distinguishing it from other forms
of innovation. Therefore, ‘struggling with innovations’ – being a crucial term in this
Special Issue – means first of all overcoming barriers towards developing a scientifically
sound concept of social innovation which, by being sufficiently generic, is able to
include diverse initiatives on the ground, but which is also clear and distinct enough so
that boundaries to technological innovation are clearly drawn. This process has proven
to be complicated and requires further research initiatives from and among different dis-
ciplines. Such an effort is not only necessary regarding scientific work in this area, but also
in terms of developing a comprehensive innovation policy with social innovation playing
an essential role.
In recent years, social sciences have been catching up, as can be seen in the international
debate where social innovation is treated as a separate type of innovation and made more
accessible as an object of empirical investigations (see Ayob, Teasdale, & Fagan, 2016;
Howaldt & Schwarz, 2010, p. 36; Moulaert, Mehmood, MacCallum, & Leubolt, 2017,
p. 30; Pelka & Terstrip, 2016). Currently, a new generation of EU-funded projects is
working on a sound theoretical understanding of social innovation and its relation to
(transformative) social change, on the economic underpinnings of social innovation, its
incubation and other foci of the topic.2
One of the most prominent areas in which the concept of social innovation has increas-
ingly become a research focus in the social sciences is local and regional development (see
e.g. Brandsen, Cattacin, Evers, & Zimmer, 2016; Kropp, 2015; Moulaert, Martinelli, Swyn-
gedouw, & González, 2005). It is the urban and the rural context in which challenges such
as the effects of the economic crisis, demographic or climate change become directly
visible as pressing social demands. And it is the cities where unlikely collaborations
emerge and tackle problems in situations where new competences are handed down
from national or regional levels without corresponding budget allocations:
Cities and their governing elites have room, sometimes wide room, to manoeuvre, (…) and
these different local contexts determine the conditions for the emergence and development of
local social innovations, for example, the space given to them, the opportunities for sustain-
ability and the scope for policy learning. (Brandsen et al., 2016, p. 7)

At the same time, researchers currently explore the role of social innovation in building
territorial capital in deprived rural areas (see Secco & Burlando, 2017).
The local context is where ‘struggling with innovations’ is becoming an everyday task
for actors from different societal sectors which take part in often conflictual and complex
innovation processes. While all of them may be working on the task of creating social
 EUROPEAN PLANNING STUDIES 3

innovations, their rationales, ideas and interests can differ significantly. Challenges and
elements of this struggle include a more precise understanding of the local social inno-
vation ecosystem and finding ways for cross-sectoral collaboration and co-creation of a
local agenda. These topics, along with social innovation intermediaries as a new type of
local actor, will be reflected in this paper.
But first, the paper seeks to contribute to a common theoretical ground in social inno-
vation theory by elaborating on a comprehensive concept of social innovation grounded
in social theory (Section 2). Specifically, recourse to Tarde’s (2009) social theory allows
us to widen a perspective which was narrowed to economic and technological inno-
vations by Schumpeter and after him by the sociology of technology, to include the
wide variety of social innovations, which are about new social practices. It will be
argued that social practice theories are helpful in order to better understand social inno-
vations, as they allow to identify the social dynamics of processes of change. By reflecting
upon the first results of the global research project SI-DRIVE (Social Innovation –
Driving Force of Social Change),3 which has used this new model as a theoretical
ground, the paper provides insights into the current setting of social innovation initiat-
ives on the ground.
In Section 3, the consequences of a comprehensive concept of social innovation for the
local level will be discussed. Attention will be paid to distinct characteristics setting social
innovation apart from traditional innovation models. A comprehensive concept of social
innovation focussing cross-sectoral collaborations between actors from state, research,
business and the civil society and its relevance for the local context will again be
reflected against the background of first preliminary results from the global research
project SI-DRIVE. The results shed a light on the diversity of social innovation on
different societal levels and stimulate the generic theoretical debate as well as the debate
on social innovation in urban contexts. The paper introduces social innovation ecosystems
as an emerging theoretical approach and heuristic model especially for urban social inno-
vation and reflect upon new infrastructures such as social innovation labs and centres as
facilitators of local social innovation initiatives and processes.

2. Social innovation: an important part of a new innovation paradigm

As a discipline, innovation research widely finds its systematic beginnings and point of
reference, valid to this day, in Schumpeter’s 1912 publication of ‘Theorie der wirtschaftli-
chen Entwicklung’ [Theory of economic development] (Schumpeter, 1964).4 According to
this work, economic development takes place as a permanent process of ‘creative destruc-
tion’. What propels this dynamic, the impetus and origin of economic fluctuation, is inno-
vation in the sense of the ‘execution of new combinations’, of ‘establishing a new
production function’. Inventions become innovations if they successfully take hold on
the market. Introducing and realizing innovations is considered the actual work and func-
tion of the entrepreneur. Schumpeter focuses not only on technical innovation, but also
distinguishes between product-related, procedural and organizational innovations, using
new resources and tapping new markets. He also addresses the process of innovation.
Moreover, he underscores the necessity of social innovation occurring in tandem in
both the economic arena as well as in culture, politics and a society’s way of life in
order to guarantee the economic efficacy of technological innovations.
4 D. DOMANSKI ET AL.

These two emphases of his work, the inventing entrepreneur as the key figure on the
one hand and the extended innovation concept including process and organizational
innovations on the other hand, can be considered the main reasons for Schumpeter
becoming a central figure also in contemporary social innovation discourse – especially
in those discourses where the boundaries between social entrepreneurship and social inno-
vation remain unclear (for a critical analysis of this boundary problem see Christmann,
2011; Howaldt, Domanski, & Schwarz, 2015). Social entrepreneurship, again, is playing
a vital role in the promotion of urban development through intermediaries such as
social innovation labs and centres, even though the social innovation concept exceeds
social entrepreneurship considerably (see Section 3).
Influenced by the works of Schumpeter, the concept of innovation was increasingly
reduced to technological innovations. Remarks on social innovation in literature after
Schumpeter are scarce and marginal (see Moulaert et al., 2005, p. 1974). From an econ-
omics vantage point, involvement with innovation today is directed primarily at the
underlying conditions impeding and fostering innovation, both within a company and
outside of it, the necessary or deployable resources, the organization of innovation man-
agement in terms of systematic innovation replacing or enhancing the role of the entre-
preneur (Blättel-Mink, 2006, p. 81) as well as the economic impact and effects of
innovation.
International innovation research is providing numerous indications of a fundamental
shift in the innovation paradigm (Butzin, Howaldt, Weber, & Schaper-Rinkel, 2014,
p. 115; Hochgerner, 2013; Howaldt & Schwarz, 2010). This new paradigm is characterized
by three key categories: (1) The innovation process opening up to society, (2) its orien-
tation by the major societal challenges and (3) a stronger recognition of non-technological
innovations geared to changing social practices (FORA, 2010; Howaldt & Schwarz, 2010).5
With innovation processes opening up to society, companies, technical schools and
research institutes are no longer the only relevant agents in the process of innovation. Citi-
zens and customers no longer serve as suppliers for information about their needs (as in
traditional innovation management); they make contributions to the process of develop-
ing new products to resolve problems. Terms and concepts such as open innovation, cus-
tomer integration and networks reflect individual aspects of this development. At the same
time, innovation – based on economic development – becomes a general social phenom-
enon that increasingly influences and permeates every aspect of life.
The second category, the innovation process’ orientation by the major societal chal-
lenges, is reflected by the programmatic European research and innovation policy,
which has developed a new perspective on innovation since the beginning of the 90s of
the last century. Meanwhile, large parts of the European support programmes as well as
the German Hightech Strategy are structured in accordance with the major societal chal-
lenges (European Commission, 2015; Interreg, 2015).
Finally, with the emergence of this new innovation paradigm, it is not only the perspec-
tive on innovation processes and their integration in societal structures and processes, but
also the object of innovation which is changing. At the heart of the industrial society inno-
vation paradigm we find technical innovations relating to products and processes that ‘are
regarded as (almost) the only hope of societal development’ (Gillwald, 2000, n. pag.).
Social innovations are confronted with enormous expectations of providing answers to
wicked societal problems, given the fact that issues such as massive unemployment, the
 EUROPEAN PLANNING STUDIES 5

erosion of the social security system or the intensification of ecological risks cannot be
overcome without implementing social innovation. And in light of the financial and econ-
omic crisis, it is becoming increasingly clear that social innovations, as they relate to exten-
sive change in both the leading cultures that influence behaviour and the social practices in
the economy and consumption, determine ‘in what sort of world the next generation of the
citizens of free societies will be living’ (Dahrendorf, 2009).

2.1. On social practices and a comprehensive understanding of innovation

A critical literature review reveals that social innovation has many different (and some-
times conflicting) meanings, spanning a variety of areas such as innovation studies, man-
agement and organizational research, the field of workplace and quality of working life, as
part of the social economy, in sustainable development, or as an aspect of local competi-
tiveness and territorial development (Howaldt, Butzin, Domanski, & Kaletka, 2014). This
is largely in line with criticism expressed some years before by authors such as Pol and
Ville (2009), stating that the term ‘social innovation’ has ‘entered the discourse of social
scientists with particular speed, but there is no consensus regarding the relevance or
specific meaning in the social sciences and humanities’ (Pol & Ville, 2009, p. 878; see
also Rüede & Lurtz, 2012 for a comparative perspective on social innovation concepts).
The international academic debate has seen a significant upswing in recent years in
light of increasing political interest in social innovation (Franz, Hochgerner, &
Howaldt, 2012; Howaldt & Schwarz, 2010; Moulaert, MacCallum, Mehmood, & Ham-
douch, 2013a). This interest, along with its translation into funding programmes, net-
works and events, has contributed to more conceptual clarity in distinct fields of social
innovation research. But while some concepts have gained particular attention and are
more widely discussed than others, there is still a considerable number of ‘different
approaches within contemporary SI research, which reflect not only disciplinary, concep-
tual and ideological differences, but also different priorities in terms of their empirical
focus’, as Moulaert et al. (2017, p. 4) impressively show in their recent meta-survey of
social innovation literature and research projects.
This lack of consensus mainly has to do with different understandings of the notion of
the ‘social’. In this regard, we argue that with social innovations, the new does not manifest
itself in the medium of technological artefacts, but at the level of social practices. If it is
accepted that the invention and success of the steam engine, the computer or the smart-
phone should be regarded differently from the invention and social spread of a national
system of healthcare provision, the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) or a
system of micro financing, then it stands to reason that there is an intrinsic difference
between technological and social innovations.
The intrinsic difference can be understood by looking at the core of what is changing in
social innovation processes, by identifying the fundamental unit of social innovation. This
fundamental unit are social practices. Referring to the socio-philosophically inspired
‘practice turn’ in the field of social science (Reckwitz, 2003; Schatzki, Knorr-Cetina, &
Savigny, 2001), social practice theories (SPT) overcome the reduction of the methodologi-
cal individualism and actor centred as well as structuralist approaches. With their focus on
social practices and reproduction and change as the central element of sociality, they allow
to identify the social dynamics of processes of change. This modified understanding of the
6 D. DOMANSKI ET AL.

social as social practices opens the view on their reconfiguration as a core element of social
innovation and social change (Howaldt, Kesselring, Kopp, & Schwarz, 2014; Shove,
Pantzar, & Watson, 2012).
With Reckwitz we can define practice as ‘a routinised type of behaviour’ (Reckwitz,
2002, p. 249) that consists of interdependencies between diverse elements. Shove et al.
describe the central elements that constitute a practice as materials, competencies and
meanings (Shove et al., 2012, p. 22). Social practices are brought about, changed or abol-
ished by establishing, maintaining or terminating a connection between their diverse
elements. In short, the central elements of social practices are corporeality in the sense
of an incorporated sociality and physically executed practices, materiality in the sense
of the meaning of artefacts, things technology of and for social practices as well as com-
petences in the sense of know-how, practical knowledge, background knowledge and level
of understanding. In summary, a practice is ‘an ensemble of interconnected, repetitive
activities of the bodies which are tied together by implicit and shared ways of understand-
ing and knowledge’ (Reckwitz, 2008, p. 151). The social world is therefore composed of
very specifically nameable, individual, although interdependent practices. Examples are
practices of governance, of organizing, of partnership, of negotiations and practices of
self etc. (Reckwitz, 2003); practices of comfort, cleanliness and convenience (Shove,
2003); practices of working and nurturing (Hargreaves, Longhurst, & Seyfang, 2013);
and lastly practices of consumption (Brand, 2010).
In this perspective, we describe social innovation as a new combination6 and/or new
configuration of social practices in certain areas of action or social contexts prompted
by certain actors or constellations of actors in an intentional targeted manner with the
goal of better satisfying or answering needs and problems than is possible on the basis
of established practices. An innovation is therefore social to the extent that it, conveyed
by the market or ‘non/without profit’, is socially accepted and diffused throughout
society or in certain societal sub-areas, transformed depending on circumstances and ulti-
mately institutionalized as new social practice or made routine.
As with every other innovation, ‘new’ does not necessarily mean ‘good’ or ‘socially
desirable’ in an extensive and normative sense. According the actors’ practical rationale,
social attributions for social innovations are generally uncertain (Howaldt & Schwarz,
2010, p. 26). Social innovation can be
interpreted as a process of collective creation in which the members of a certain collective
unit learn, invent and lay out new rules for the social game of collaboration and of
conflict or, in a word, a new social practice, and in this process they acquire the necessary
cognitive, rational and organisational skills. (Crozier & Friedberg, 1993, p. 19)

Consequently, the enhancement of existing and the development of new practices results
from a recombination or reconfiguration of new and existing elements. In most cases, the
innovative achievement comes down to such a reconfiguration and not to the establish-
ment of entirely new practices. For example, the recent success of car sharing and the
sharing economy as a whole draws upon historic practices of rural and village commu-
nities and combines these digital with modern communication and organization practices
enabled by GPS and the internet. In this line, social innovations as recombined social prac-
tices change the manner in which we live together (shared housing), work (telework), dis-
tribute wealth (unconditional basic income) or deal with economic crises (short time work
 EUROPEAN PLANNING STUDIES 7

instead of termination). Social innovations provide new forms of collaboration between

people (co-working spaces), organizations (public-private partnerships) and states (agree-
ment on the free movement of labour). Social innovations can emerge within different
sectors: in civil society (urban farming), public policy (parental leave), economy (micro
credits). In short: social innovations in a sense of new practices are omnipresent and con-
tribute to social change. The establishment of new social practices does play a prominent
role in making mobility more environmentally friendly, diseases less scary or the energy
turnaround more successful.
Here, the social is to seek in the collectivity of behaviours that are held together by
specific ‘practical skills’: practices thus form an emergent level of the social, which is
however not situated ‘in the environment’ of their physical mental carrier (Reckwitz,
2003). Social practices are always present, are reproduced and changed by acting sub-
jects, by creating anew what already exists in the continuity of practice, again and
again.
According to Shove et al. (2012), social practices are formed, changed or replaced by
new practices by making, sustaining, changing or breaking the link between their elements
(Shove et al., 2012, p. 7). While the significance of artefacts and technologies is the core
area of innovation studies, and a difference is usually made between innovation, develop-
ment and diffusion, the SPT approach allows to carve out the dynamic relation between
producers and users in building and stabilizing new arrangements as well as the embedd-
edness of innovations in social practices. Novelty can start from each of the elements, not
only from the material dimension (Shove et al., 2012, p. 31). Innovations of social practices
can be understood as processes of connecting the new with already existing elements
(Shove et al., 2012, p. 15).

2.2. Social innovation and social change

While culminating social and economic problems identified in public discourse are
increasingly prompting a call for extensive social innovation, the relationship between
social innovation and social change remains a largely under-explored area in the social
sciences as well as government innovation policies.
Whereas – based mainly on Ogburn’s theory – a specialized sociology of change has
developed (Schäfers, 2002), with few exceptions social innovation as an analytical cat-
egory is at best a secondary topic both in the classical and contemporary social
theory approaches and concepts of social differentiation and social integration, social
order and social development, modernization and transformation. This is all the
more astonishing given that Ogburn not only makes ‘cultural lag’ – the difference in
the time it takes for the comparatively ‘slow’ non-material culture to catch up with
the faster-developing material culture – his starting point and systematically differen-
tiates between technological and social innovations (and inventions) as critical factors
in social change. He also emphasizes that the use of the term ‘inventions’ is not
restricted to technological inventions, but also includes social inventions such as the
League of Nations.
Invention is defined as a combination of existing and known elements of culture, material
and/or non-material, or a modification of one to form a new one. (…) By inventions we
8 D. DOMANSKI ET AL.

do not mean only the basic or important inventions, but the minor ones and the incremental
improvements. Inventions, then, are the evidence on which we base our observations of social
evolution. (Ogburn, 1969, p. 56)

Thus, Ogburn is convinced that in the interplay of invention, accumulation, exchange and
adaptation, he has discovered the basic elements of ‘cultural development’ (Ogburn, 1969,
p. 56) and hence – like Darwin for biological evolution – has developed a model to explain
social evolution.
However, if transformative social change refers to the reconfiguration of practices from
which sociality arises, in this perspective it cannot be perceived as the result of an evol-
utionary process but a reaction in the shape of processes of reflexive social learning
towards existing ways of life and forms of practices becoming obsolete (Jaeggi, 2013).
In this sense, social change can be influenced by changing social practices and stimulating
social innovations based on continuous new adaptation and configuration anchored in
social practices themselves, which means real experiments with the participation of het-
erogeneous actors understood as carriers of social practices and in the context of an
unequally self-organised co-evolutionary process (Shove, 2010, p. 1274; Shove et al.,
2012, p. 162).
Against the background of the emergence of a new innovation paradigm, it becomes
more important to devote greater attention to social innovation as a mechanism of
change residing at the micro and meso level. Why? First, the shortcomings of older
models of social change and of an economically and technologically focused innovation
model become increasingly apparent when dealing with the key social challenges.
Second, new forms of governance and social self-management, of the ‘criticism that actu-
ally takes place in society’ (Vobruba, 2013, p. 160), of protest movements that aim to shape
society (Marg, Geiges, Butzlaff, & Walter, 2013) and new social practices in social life and
related governance – understood as necessary social innovations – are evidently becoming
increasingly established. In the context of the broad social debate surrounding sustainable
development and necessary social transformation processes (Geels & Schot, 2007), the
question of the relationship between social innovations and social change arises again:
how can processes of social change be initiated which go beyond the illusion of centralist
management concepts to link social innovations from the mainstream of society with the
intended social transformation processes?
Recourse to Gabriel Tarde (2009), the long-forgotten classic exponent of a sociology of
innovation, is helpful in gaining a better theoretical understanding of the relationship
between social innovations and social change. His achievement lies in explaining social
change ‘from the bottom up’, and not objectivistically, like Durkheim, ‘from the top
down’, in terms of social facts and structures (Gilgenmann, 2010, p. 7). Tarde’s contri-
bution to the micro-foundation of a sociology of innovation can be used to assist in devel-
oping a concept of social innovation as a social mechanism of change residing at the micro
and meso level.7
According to Tarde, it seems meaningful to creatively reconfigure the potentials of
existing inventions through imitation, rather than constantly producing new individual
inventions. If we follow Tarde in pointing out the social embeddedness of any invention
in a dense network of imitation streams, then social innovations are first and foremost
ensemble performances, requiring interaction between many actors. As the opening of
 EUROPEAN PLANNING STUDIES 9

the innovation process to society is a key characteristic of the new innovation paradigm
(Howaldt & Kopp, 2012, p. 45), there is an accompanying increase in the experimental
processes which take place not only in the separate world of scientific laboratories but
also in society (Krohn, 2005). Social innovations and their protagonists who critically,
exploratively and experimentally depart from the prevailing ‘mental maps’, the established
rules, routines, pathways and models in politics, business and society – such as the econ-
omization of all areas of life and an inevitable link between prosperity and growth
(Jackson, 2012; Leggewie & Welzer, 2009) – who call these into question and in a ‘com-
petition of ideas’, lead the way to changing, alternative social practices and lifestyles as
the basis and main drivers of transformative social change (e.g. Jonker, 2012).
Changing social practices are generally based on drawn-out, contingent and self-mana-
ging processes which, as Tarde points out, are subject to their own ‘laws’ – the laws of imi-
tation. Previous attempts to ‘manage’ such processes through policy have proven to be
decidedly difficult. A comprehensive innovation policy which, in addition to supporting
new technologies, also focuses on social innovations and enabling actors ‘to suspend estab-
lished routines and patterns, as only then can new ideas and behaviours thrive’ (Adolf,
2012, p. 40), on the necessary ‘freedom’ to do this and the opportunities ‘to share objec-
tified and personal (implicit) knowledge’ (Adolf, 2012, p. 41), is only in its infancy and
requires above all a deeper understanding of the principles and modes of action of
social innovations.
One of the key tasks in this regard is a necessary redefinition of the relationship between
policy and the ‘new power of the citizenry’ (Marg et al., 2013), civil society engagement,
the many and diverse initiatives and movements ‘for the transformation of our type of
industrial society’ (Welzer, 2013, p. 187). ‘A central element here is to enable citizens
[in the sense of empowerment – authors’ note] to share in responsibility for the future,
which should not be equated with personal responsibility in the neoliberal sense’
(Rückert-John, 2013, p. 291). This perspective on the power of citizenry, initiatives and
movements requires a stronger focus of social innovation theory and empirical analysis
on the local level.

3. Social innovation in the urban context

According to Tarde, big cities and especially capitals are the places where inventions
become visible first and imitation mostly takes place.8 It is therefore no surprise that
local and regional development is one of the areas in which the concept of social inno-
vation has increasingly become the subject of research in the social sciences. In this
section, the focus lies on three aspects which can help to understand and describe how
new arrangements of social practices are built and stabilized.
In Europe, research on the topic of social innovation has been being conducted from a
regional perspective since the end of the 1980s, particularly by Louis Laville and Frank
Moulaert. Chambon, Alix, and Devevey (1982) also hinted at the significance of the
local level for social innovation processes during this period. Here, social innovations
are understood as locally constructed responses to social problems. According to the
authors’ argument, social innovation ‘does not stem from new mechanisms or processes
introduced by the large organizations or institutions, but from localized and localizable
actions’ (Fontan, Klein, & Tremblay, 2008, p. 23). Although arguable, these considerations
10 D. DOMANSKI ET AL.

were crucial to draw a growing number of – especially francophone – researchers’ atten-

tion to the role of local contexts regarding social innovations and even to consider the local
level as the most relevant place for the emergence of social innovation. Chambon et al.
(1982) not only show that social innovation can occur in different types of communities,
but emphazise that it depends on processes of consciousness raising, mobilization and
learning. Furthermore, they argue that state can act as a barrier to social innovation as
well as stimulate it (Jessop, Moulaert, Hulgård, & Hamdouch, 2013, p. 114).
In Europe, a series of research projects delivered important findings on the role of the
local level for social innovation, with special emphasis on the social economy. For
example, the project Integrated Area Development (IAD) dealt with challenges faced by
neighbourhoods and provided ‘an alternative to the more prevalent forms of market-led
economic development’ (Moulaert, MacCallum, & Hillier, 2013, p. 19). Another impor-
tant project which helped to better understand the role of social innovation in community
building was SINGOCOM (Social Innovation, Governance and Community Building). It
showed that social innovations involve different dimensions such as the relation to culture,
social connection and identity, going beyond material and economic issues (Moulaert
et al., 2013, p. 19). Findings from SINGOCOM also essentially contributed to the under-
standing of governance processes on the local level. For example, by focusing on the gov-
ernance structures of neighbourhood management, it was possible to describe and analyze
how a direct link between the needs and demands of excluded groups and the resources to
tackle them can be established (Moulaert et al., 2005, p. 1970).
The BEPA report supports this view when emphasizing that social innovations have the
function of mobilizing citizens to take an active part in innovation processes and thereby
enhance society’s generic innovative capacity (Bureau of European Policy Advisers, 2010).
Here, new models of governance in favour of self-organization and political participation
are required, allowing unexpected results through the involvement of stakeholders.9 If
social innovation also has to do with innovation in social relations (Moulaert et al., 2013b,
p. 2), then it can be expected to become what former EC-President Barroso referred to as
‘part of a new culture of empowerment’ (Franz et al., 2012, p. vi). This notion of culture
becomes important when the conditions for social innovations are not restricted to the
level of actors (to be discussed in Section 3.3), but understood as an ecosystem, a ‘complex
environment in which social innovations are created, develop and flourish on the one hand
and take effect or perish on the other hand’ (Eckhardt, Kaletka, & Pelka, 2017, p. 73).

3.1. Social innovation ecosystems

A systemic approach to social innovation focuses on the interfaces and collaborations of
the so far differentiated and largely separate self-referential societal sectors of state,
business, civil society and academia, of their corresponding rationalities of action and
regulation mechanisms and at the associated problems and problem-solving capacities
(Howaldt et al., 2015).
Such collaborations are picked up by at least two different heuristic models, the quad-
ruple helix (see Carayannis & Campbell, 2009; Wallin, 2010) on the one hand, where gov-
ernment, industry, academia and civil society work together to co-create the future and
drive specific structural changes and the social innovation ecosystem (see Sgaragli,
2014) on the other hand, which also asks for interactions between the helix actors, adds
 EUROPEAN PLANNING STUDIES 11

the notion of systemic complexity and looks at both the serendipity and absorptive
capacity of a system as a whole. Academic knowledge on social innovation ecosystems
is very scarce and the concept is still fuzzy. It is one of the key tasks of social innovation
research to work on the theoretical foundations of the concept and to investigate how
social innovations are created, introduced into society and sustained. Once again, a key
question is about the roles and functions of different societal sectors as well as relations
and interactions among them.
Although still emerging as a scientific concept, the social innovation ecosystems
approach has already helped to make more prominent the notion of environment for
social innovations within the scientific debate. This is especially important regarding
the question of how social innovations diffuse, how they are adopted, imitated and trans-
lated to other contexts. Following Tarde, we focus on the social embeddedness of inven-
tions in a dense network of imitation streams. This allows for a shift in perspective: unlike
Schumpeter, for whom the innovator in the social figure of the entrepreneur is the focus of
interest, for Tarde (2009) it is inventions which are understood to be the central ‘driver’ of
social development. In this context, the idea of a social innovation ecosystem helps to
overcome a strict actor-centred approach and the strong concentration on the social entre-
preneur as the key agent of change. The view on the environment in which social inno-
vations are introduced opens up the perspective on different dimensions.
Management theory points to the importance of networks as source of competitive
advantage emphasizing relation-specific assets such as knowledge sharing routines or
effective governance structures for cooperation. Such a supportive environment is
crucial for the development and imitation of social innovations. The perspective on
actors, their functions in the innovation process and their ability and willingness to
cooperate has to be sufficiently complex in order to adequately describe actors and
actor constellations of social innovation ecosystems. The empirical analysis of the research
project ‘SI-DRIVE – Social Innovation: Driving Force of Social Change’ provides insights
into systemic complexity. Within this project, a large-scale analysis of social innovation
initiatives was conducted. One of the central insights of this global mapping10 is that ‘a
clear majority seeks to satisfy a concrete social demand (68%) and/or tackle a societal chal-
lenge (59%), whereas a minority (31%) strives for systemic change’ (Howaldt et al., 2016,
p. 42). Initiatives seek to solve very concrete and often local problems. This shows how
important it is to better understand the local context in which initiatives flourish or fail.
This is further supported by the fact that, while 66% of the initiatives have transferred
their solution (Howaldt et al., 2016, p. 130), the constellations under which such successful
transfer and scaling processes take place are very diverse. Furthermore, the majority of
social innovation initiatives remains local (41%) and happens within one local ecosystem.
33% cases transfer their solutions at the regional, 37% on a national scale, with the inter-
national level’s 22% ranking fourth. But in each specific initiative, the constellation of par-
ticipating actors and sectors is different, as are the societal and governance systems in
which the social innovations are embedded, the political frame and the resources initiat-
ives can draw upon.
In such diverging settings, where a reconfiguration of social practices can hardly be
achieved by copying solutions but only by highly adaptive imitation and transfer, a
better understanding of sectoral involvement and collaboration becomes increasingly
important This is especially supported by the fact that it is not only the social economy
12 D. DOMANSKI ET AL.

which drives social innovation, but it is about all societal sectors innovating and collabor-
ating on an almost equal footing (Howaldt et al., 2016, p. 88ff).

3.2. Towards a multi-sectoral approach

Contributions made by Moulaert and his colleagues regarding the question ‘how insti-
tutional and social networks and interactions between levels of governance can work to
enable or constrain local innovation’ can hardly be overestimated (Moulaert et al.,
2013, p. 20). Also, their findings on process dynamics of social innovation, especially con-
cerning empowerment dynamics of social movements and initiatives, have significantly
contributed to a socio-theoretically sound concept of social innovation. Such a focus
goes beyond the perspective of social entrepreneurship oriented approaches, which have
dominated the social innovation discourse for years. Hence, this concept opens up new
perspectives on social innovation (Ayob et al., 2016).
But at the same time, the strong focus on the social economy fails to recognize other key
aspects of a comprehensive concept of social innovation grounded in social theory.
Although we share the view expressed by Jessop et al. (2013) that the role of ‘social enter-
prise as the key agent for social change’ is overestimated (Jessop et al., 2013, p. 111), the
main concern results from our comprehensive and integrated understanding of social
innovation, which includes all societal sectors and actors, different research areas and
fields of application. The Critical Literature Review of the SI-DRIVE project analyzes
different concepts related to social innovation and shows how according to these multiple
foci social innovation is related to social change (Howaldt, Butzin, et al., 2014). The review
reaffirms the assumption that the concept of social innovation cannot be limited to one
focus, be it social entrepreneurship or social economy, and demonstrates that widening
the perspective is crucial for understanding social innovation. Hence, it makes an impor-
tant contribution in terms of liberating social innovation from the silo of the third sector
and opening up to other areas of the society. Furthermore, it emphasizes the necessity for
research and practice of facing the issue of different rationales and interests that diverse
actors from different societal sectors usually have when participating in innovation pro-
cesses. In this context, Scoppetta, Butzin, and Rehfeld (2014) point to the need of what
they call ‘constructive partnerships between the sectors (economy/social economy-state-
society)’ (Scoppetta et al., 2014, p. 91) in order to reap the full potential of social
innovation.
This view is also supported by the results of the Global Mapping (see above). We see
that all societal sectors are active partners in social innovation: ‘Social innovation initiat-
ives’ most frequent actors are NGOs/NPOs (civil society), public bodies and private com-
panies, i.e. part of the quadruple helix of social innovation.’ (Howaldt et al., 2016, p. 93).
Findings indicate that cross-sectoral collaborations are of great importance and refute a
general dominance of the third sector. On the other hand, the marginal involvement of
research organizations (in 15% of the initiatives) contrasts with their key role in classical
innovation processes (see Asheim, 2007; Miller, McAdam, Moffett, Alexander, & Puthus-
serry, 2016) and as one actor of the triple helix model: Therefore, the empirical results
suggest a yet incomplete quadruple helix of social innovation.
Moreover, research is required to better understand, under which circumstances the
multiple roles of the state support social innovations. At the same time, against the
 EUROPEAN PLANNING STUDIES 13

background of the important role of universities and research institutes in the field of tech-
nological innovations, the function of academia in social innovation processes remains
largely unexamined. The emerging issue of University Social Responsibility, especially
in developing countries, has shown that there is unexploited potential for higher education
institutions to be socially innovative in relation with their environment. This can be
observed on the local level where universities establish relationships with communities
and neighbourhoods in order to participate in the processes of problem solving. In this
sense, one central question is how universities can get involved in social innovation pro-
cesses with communities beyond typical top-down patterns where the former create sol-
utions and the latter just play the passive role of a target group that receives support.
As far as universities are concerned, a facilitating role can be more important than a
knowledge-based expert role. The way universities and research centres are related to
other societal sectors also needs to be explored (Domanski, Howaldt, Villalobos, &
Huenchuleo, 2015).

3.3. Social innovation infrastructures

The systemic concept of social innovation, as shown above, also refers to the question how
conditions for creation, implementation and diffusion of social innovations can be
improved. While communities constitute an important arena for social innovation, in
recent years, an increasing number of cities have started to develop intermediary infra-
structures in order to create solutions for – often complex – social problems (The Rock-
efeller Foundation & The Bridgespan Group, 2014). Such infrastructures can be created as
social innovation parks, centres, labs or incubators, just to mention the most typical
denominations. While there is a long tradition of establishing supporting infrastructures
for development of technological innovations (e.g. science and technology parks), the con-
sciousness about the need for supporting infrastructures regarding social innovations is
generally underdeveloped and often still absent on political agendas. It is usually the
civil society which creates intermediary infrastructures without public funding. At the
same time, we can hardly assume that such infrastructures can be developed just following
the experience of supporting measures for technological innovations, as social innovations
are created and sustained in a different way.
We argue that the potential of social innovation for responding to social needs cannot
be fully exploited without supporting structures. It is also quite obvious that traditional
institutions are not able to fulfil that function as they are guided by different concepts
and lack necessary know-how. Moreover, sometimes there is ‘no clear accountability for
solving the problem’ (The Rockefeller Foundation & The Bridgespan Group, 2014,
p. 11), when ‘many stakeholders are responsible for carrying out a solution’ (The Rocke-
feller Foundation & The Bridgespan Group, 2014, p. 11) which is typical for new, emerging
problems. Consequently, intermediary structures such as social innovation laboratories or
social innovation centres have been developed in local communities, cities, inter-minister-
ial and transnational contexts. These intermediary structures have gained importance
especially on the local level, but despite their increase both in terms of sheer numbers
and in their diversity, empirical knowledge is still very scarce. With more and more of
such intermediaries emerging and research conducted, we will be able to better understand
and develop structures and strategies for social innovation on the urban level alongside
14 D. DOMANSKI ET AL.

supporting structures for technological innovation in a complementary way. Furthermore,

the question arises which role spatial planning can play in such processes. As Ibert, Christ-
mann, Jessen, and Walther (2015) show in their article on innovations in spatial planning,
there is a great potential for social innovations in cities, which has not been used so far in
this discipline because innovations are often not understood as result of conscious and tar-
geted action.
At this moment, social innovation labs are still not easy to define, especially because
their functions are not yet fully understood. Very different types of social innovation
labs in terms of structure, financing, stakeholders or activities can be found in different
cities, which makes the task even more difficult. To put it with Westley et al. (2015),
‘there is as yet no established orthodoxy about what a Lab is, and the term is applied to
a plethora of processes and organizations, often with markedly different goals and employ-
ing distinct methods and approaches’. (Westley et al., 2015, p. 1)
We probably get close to a kind of ideal concept of such labs if we describe them as new
institutions open to citizens where processes of collaborative and often cross-sectoral
problem solving are facilitated. A social innovation lab ‘strategically brings people together
at a time when persistent problems, disruptive changes or a crisis demand that stake-
holders come together to make new sense of the situation’ (Westley et al., 2015, p. 18).
It offers spaces and resources for teams consisting of citizens, business companies,
public administration, policy-makers and researchers and creates an innovative milieu.
Open and participatory policy-making is an important element in such innovative
milieus, but it is not sufficient. Corresponding preconditions are an active civil society con-
tributing to a high level of urban serendipity, companies going beyond traditional concepts
of CSR and scientists exercising a new role of research (Howaldt & Kopp, 2012; Moulaert
et al., 2013a; Schneidewind, 2014).
Social innovation labs can help to make an innovation out of a mere invention; a typical
challenge for many good ideas when they face the task of implementation into practice.
And, not less important, their support can be very useful when it comes to bringing
together and coordinating different – often quite small – social innovation initiatives in
order to achieve broader impact. In this sense, we can understand social innovation
labs ‘as a process, one that is intended to support multi-stakeholder groups in addressing
a complex social problem’ (Westley et al., 2015, p. 1). Such a process ‘allows for the rich-
ness of complex systems to shape decision-making; it includes a compilation of tools for
exploring and imagining systems as a group; and, it uses techniques for creating and/or
identifying pathways for innovations to cross scales’ (Westley et al., 2015, p. 18).
With recourse to Tarde, the rise of the concept of social innovation labs and its increas-
ing implementation into practice as a part of public policy can be also understood as a shift
towards creative reconfiguration of the potentials of existing inventions through social
practice of imitation, away from constant production of new individual inventions. In
this context, the wealth of a nation (in this case, it could be also applied to a city) for
Tarde is rooted in its ability to ‘use the knowledge of its time in a particular way’
(Tarde, 2009, p. 254). This resonates with the idea of social innovation infrastructures
which tap the potential of existing inventions – a concept described as absorptive capacity
in innovation research, of reflected imitation and adaptation processes of existing inno-
vations and a corresponding professionalization of the actors involved. Implementation
 EUROPEAN PLANNING STUDIES 15

of such supporting structures as labs and centres represents a new social practice itself and,
at the same time, creates a space for development of further social innovations.

4. Conclusions
The great challenge for contemporary innovation research lies in analyzing its potential in
the search for new social practices that enable us to secure the future and allow people to
live ‘a richer and more fulfilled human life’ (Rorty, 2008, p. 191). We have argued that it is
the local and more specifically the urban context in which societal challenges become
obvious as concrete social demands and in which problems are tackled by new social prac-
tices, often in unlikely collaborations.
Recent years have seen increasing efforts to elaborate a sound theoretical understanding
of such often complex social innovation processes and their relation to social change.
Findings in the field of local and regional development on process dynamics of social inno-
vation, especially concerning empowerment dynamics of social movements and initiatives,
have significantly contributed to a socio-theoretically sound concept of social innovation.
A social theory of innovation must examine the multiple and manifold imitation
streams and must decode the principles and laws they follow. It is only via social practice
that the diverse inventions etc. make their way into society and thus become the object of
acts of imitation. Social practice is a central component of a theory of transformative social
change, in which the wide variety of everyday inventions constitute stimuli and incentives
for reflecting on and possibly changing social practices. Here, Tarde’s social theory can be
understood and developed further as a theory of the ‘innovations of society’ (Rammert,
2010), which is able to decode the relationship between social innovations and (transfor-
mative) social change. Thus, new perspectives open up on an understanding of innovation
which adequately captures the diversity of innovations in society and also on an urban
level.
Social innovation ecosystems were described as a theoretical approach and heuristic
model especially for urban social innovation that focusses on the reconfiguration of the
interfaces of cross-sector co-operation and the establishment of governance structures
to support collaborative action for social innovation. A new type of intermediary infra-
structures such as social innovation labs and centres was introduced as facilitators of – pri-
marily local – social innovation initiatives and processes. We consider these intermediaries
one of the hot topics of social innovation research in the upcoming years. Open questions
include how a typology can be described and which type of infrastructure can serve what
purpose, what sets these infrastructures apart from traditional and well-researched tech-
nology centres and innovation incubators, or which new qualifications and competence
profiles are needed by the staff. These questions need to be answered when we consider
that social change can be influenced by changing social practices and stimulating social
innovations based on continuous new adaptation and configuration of social practices:
Then, real experiments with the participation of heterogeneous actors as carriers of
such social practices and with said facilitation expertize involved gain strategic impor-
tance. A more prominent focus in urban and regional planning and urban innovation
policy as a field of action complementary to traditional innovation support focusing on
technology would mirror the emergence of the new innovation paradigm on a different
scale. We believe that our concept that is based on an analytical definition of social
16 D. DOMANSKI ET AL.

innovation and includes a multi-sectoral approach can be useful in order to contribute to

this development.

Notes
1. See the manifold contributions in Harrisson, Bourque, and Széll (2009); Franz et al. (2012)
and Moulaert et al. (2013a).
2. See e.g. SI-DRIVE (www.si-drive.eu), SIMPACT (http://www.simpact-project.eu/),
TRANSIT (http://www.transitsocialinnovation.eu/) and CrESSI (http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/
faculty-research/research-projects/cressi).
3. SI-DRIVE is funded within the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union. The
project is working on the theoretical concepts, areas of empirical research and observable
trends in the field of social innovation on both European and global scales. The results of
the project are summarized in the ‘Atlas of Social Innovation. New Practices for a better
Future’ (Howaldt, Kaletka, Schröder, & Zirngiebl, 2018).
4. It has to be noted that, while the Schumpeterian approach can indeed be considered a cor-
nerstone of modern innovation research with merits also in social innovation, innovation as a
historical concept dates back centuries further – for an exhaustive synopsis see Godin (2015).
5. The authors of a study relating to the OECD Committee for Industry, Innovation, and Entre-
preneurship (CIIE) advance this thesis: ‘A new nature of innovation is emerging and reshap-
ing public policy’ (FORA, 2010).
6. The term relates to the Schumpeterian definition of innovation as a new combination of pro-
duction factors.
7. Jessop et al. (2013) argue that combining theories of social change by such classics as Weber,
Durkheim or Schumpeter with a practice-oriented analysis of developments in recent
decades is essential in order to give a coherent epistemological status and methodological
fundament to social innovation analysis. In this context, they advocate for analyzing social
innovation in light of social change and not as a part of a multi-dimensional innovation
system. According to the authors, social innovation is about a completely new ontology,
which has to do with socialized change practices instead of organizational efficiency and
an optimized use of knowledge. This notion of a different ontological perspective and an
orientation towards a constitutive, performative role of social practices and their transforma-
tive potential is an interesting idea which would be worth further development. At the same,
the idea of giving social innovation analysis a coherent epistemological status and methodo-
logical fundament through recourse to theories of social change is only discussed, but not yet
applied by the authors.
8. Czarniawska (2009) shows how a series of European capitals have developed a close network
of imitative relationships. Political authorities, public administration and management
observe trends in other cities which become fashionable and imitate them. The process of
adaptation makes imitation a new creation, be it because of changes in the form or in the
content. Czarniawska’s interpretation of Tarde’s concept of imitation regarding big cities
is particularly useful in order to understand how innovations from public sector can be
created and implemented on the local level. Here, imitation of fashions can play a key role.
9. Klein, Fontan, Harrisson, and Lévesque (2013) describe the development of the Québec
Model as social innovation linked to social transformation. ‘From this standpoint, participa-
tive governance, co-production of services or activities, co-construction of public policies, as
well as the plural character of the economy […] represent important dimensions of social
innovation’ (Klein et al., 2013, p. 382). Thereby they identify the ‘economic turn’ – ‘the
fact that social movements have switched from merely demanding actions from other to
proactive actions at the economic level’ (Jonker, 2013, p. 382) – as an important source
for social innovation (Jonker, 2013, p. 371).
10. A database of 1005 cases of social innovation initiatives has been created, covering about 80
countries on all world continents. The different aims and objectives of the initiatives were
 EUROPEAN PLANNING STUDIES 17

summarized in seven thematic policy fields (education, employment, environment, mobility

& transport, health & social care, poverty & sustainable development). Criteria in this expert-
based selection process were the compliance of the cases with the working definition of social
innovation used in the project (Howaldt & Schwarz, 2010, p. 26; the definition was intro-
duced in Section 2.2) and the accessibility of information on the case which had to be
sufficiently rich in order to complete the survey used for the mapping. The first empirical
phase of SI-DRIVE, in which the mapping was complemented by reports on social inno-
vation in the seven policy fields, reports on social innovation in different world regions,
and policy and foresight workshops, has produced an explorative and unique inventory of
social innovation around the world, empirically underlining the diversity and plurality of
concepts, objectives and actors and their diverse roles within a social innovation process.
A qualitative case study analysis of 70 initiatives worldwide will be conducted in the
second empirical phase of SI-DRIVE.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID
Christoph Kaletka http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5492-030X

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