A presentation on innovation that sought to examine, in particular, the purpose and triggers of social innovation, as well as the roles of social context, networks, and trust in innovation.

1. Innovation: what’s that all about?
James Kirwan
jkirwan@glos.ac.uk
PUREFOOD Winter School
Barcelona
20th November 2012

2. Central questions
1. How can we understand the relationship
between innovation and paradigm change?
2. What are the purpose, role, and trigger(s) of
social innovation?
3. How is innovation governed?
4. What are the roles of social context, networks,
and trust in innovation?
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3. Session outline
• What is an innovation?
• Transition pathways and systems innovation
• Innovation, EU agriculture and rural areas
• Responsible innovation
• Social innovation
• Concluding thoughts
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4. Diffusion of an innovation model
• Rogers defines an innovation as "an idea,
practice, or object that is perceived as new by an
individual or other unit of adoption".
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5. Sustainability and innovation
• Tension between innovation and
institutionalisation i.e. the sustainability of the
innovation
• Innovation that is about sustainability
• Socio-technical transition theory
• Systems innovation and strategic niche
management
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6. 6

7. Transition pathways
• Timing
• Nature of interaction
• Four ‘Transition Pathways’
• Multi-level perspective provides a global framing
• The ‘pathways’ are of ideal types
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8. Paradigm change?
• First order, or incremental, innovation
• Second order, or radical, innovation
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9. Systems innovation
• Sociotechnical perspective
• Strategic niche management (SNM)
• Niche development crucial to break path-
dependency and create new paths
• The paradox of SNM
• The MLP model has heuristic value, but in
practice niche-regime distinctions are rarely so
clear-cut, with blurred boundaries
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10. Challenges for EU agriculture and
rural areas
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11. Challenges for EU agriculture and
rural areas
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12. Implications for rural activities
and resources
• EU agriculture must become much
more resource-efficient
• The multifunctionality of rural spaces
must be maintained and increased
• Ecosystem services need more
attention and long-term planning

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14. Sustainable intensification
“Achieving higher yields from the same
acreage without severely impacting the
environment requires a new way of
approaching food production - sustainable
intensification.” (Godfray et al 2010, p. 2776)
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15. Sustainable intensification
•Solutions from science and technology:
–Crop improvement
–Crop protection
–Sustainable livestock farming
–Mechanisation and engineering
–Nanotechnologies
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16. How best to promote innovation?
Fostering and promoting a climate in which innovation
is encouraged:
• Stronger research-practice linkages
• Communities of learning: advice, training and
information (awareness-raising)
• Boundaries, boundary objects and boundary brokers
• ‘Effective reformism’ (Klerkx, 2010)
• New networking and collaborative action

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22. Responsible Innovation
• Uncertainty is a defining feature of innovation
• Unintended/unforeseen impacts and
consequences
• Need for reflection on the purpose and motivations
of science and innovation
• ‘Innovation’ as a non-linear, collective process that
translates ideas into value
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23. Responsible Innovation
• Uncertainty and ignorance: e.g. geo-engineering
• How should we proceed? Should we proceed at all?
How is this decision reached?
• Get the science right first and think through the
implications later?
• A ‘responsibility gap’.
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24. Responsible Innovation
• Responsible innovation defined as ‘taking care of
the future through collective stewardship of science
and innovation in the present’.
• Responsible innovation needs to be:
– Anticipatory
– Reflective
– Inclusive
– Responsive
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25. Responsible Innovation
• Stilgoe, J., Owen, R., Macnaghten, P., (2012) An
Outline Framework for Responsible Innovation:
Taking care of the future through collective
stewardship of science and innovation in the
present. A nine-month study supported by the
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
(EPSRC). .
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26. Social Innovation - Context
• Evaluation of the Big Lottery funded Local Food
programme.
• Giving voice to local food networks (LFNs).
• Moving beyond technocratic responses.
• Encompassing the social contribution of LFNs.
• Developing community capacity through
grassroots social innovations.
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27. Local Food programme
• £60 million programme.
• Launched in 2007.
• Distributes funds to more than 500 food related
projects, ranging from small grants of £2000 up to
£500,000 (‘Beacon’ projects).
• Aim: to make locally grown food accessible and
affordable to local communities.
• Ongoing evaluation from November 2009-March
2014. 27

28. Social Innovation
• Historically can be traced back to Max Weber.
• Socio-technical regimes.
• Distinctiveness of ‘social’ innovations.
– ‘Innovation does not occur in the medium of technical
artefact but at the level of social practice’.
– Interaction is at the centre of any social innovation.
• Social innovations are effectively ‘acts of change’.
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29. Social Innovation
• “Social innovation can be defined as mould-breaking ways
of confronting unmet social need by creating new and
sustainable capabilities, assets or opportunities for
change” (Adams and Hess, 2008, page 3).
• A focus on asset building rather than needs.
• The community viewed as a social agent.
• Governance shift from centralised action to local
action.
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30. Grassroots Social Innovation
• Innovations associated with economic innovations and,
in particular, technical efficiency.
• “Networks of activists and organisations generating
novel bottom-up solutions” Seyfang and Smith (2007, p. 585).
• Two key goals:
– To satisfy the needs of those people or communities who may
in some way be disadvantaged (intrinsic benefits/simple niche).
– An ideological commitment to develop alternatives to the
mainstream hegemonic regime (diffusion ben./strategic niche) .
• Developing the capacities of communities to respond to
locally identified problems. 30

31. The five dimensions of social innovation
(adapted from Moulaert et al. (2005) and Adams and Hess (2008)
2. Changes to social
1. The satisfaction of relations through 3. Increasing socio-
human needs process political capability and
access to resources
Grassroots social
innovations as a means
of developing community
capacity
4. Asset building at 5. The community as
an individual and a social agent
community level
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32. Discussion of social innovation
• Conceptualising LFNs as grassroots social innovations
extends understanding of their wider impacts.
• Enabled a reinterpretation of what is meant by the terms
‘accessible’ and ‘affordable’.
• Extended discussion beyond material benefits to
incorporate social needs.
• Food as the pretext and vector for developing community
capacity.
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33. Discussion of social innovation
Social innovations as “new forms of civic involvement,
participation and democratisation... contributing to an
empowerment of disadvantaged groups and leading to
better citizen involvement which may, in turn, lead to a
satisfaction of hitherto unsatisfied human needs”.
Neumeier (2011, p. 53)
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34. Concluding thoughts
• Social and technological innovations.
• To transform things for the better. E.g.
– To transform farm-level knowledge and practices
– To develop new businesses based upon sustainable
resource management
– To satisfy ‘unsatisfied human needs’
• New ways of working and developing policy
• New institutional arrangements
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