Social innovation and its discontents

Over the last two decades the keyword “innovation” gained significant popularity because of its capacity to represent processes generating something “new” and “worthy”. Innovation has been defined from many different points of view (economic, political, cultural, organizational, technological, and so on). But what is exactly the “sociality” of those innovations? The Bureau of European Policy Advisers defines “social” innovation as socially oriented in both ends and means. Other observers underline that social innovation is portrayed by the capacity to address social needs that traditional institutions seem increasingly unable to tackle; the empowerment of groups and individuals; the renewed quality of social services; the willingness to change social relations and communications.
In this series of seminars we wish to specify more precisely the meaning of the “social dimension” of social innovation and its conditions of possibility (generation, dissemination, and institutionalization). At the same time, we want to reflect critically on the “other side” of social innovation which might soon turn out to be, paradoxically, a subtle way to foster processes of social retrenchment, substituting the commons and the public goods with the blurring concept of “social”, so to avoid heated discussions on structural inequalities and diffused processes of social exclusion.

Opening Lectures
Prof. Frank Moulaert
Prof. of Spatial Planning & Development
Head of the Planning and Development Unit ASRO
Faculty of Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven – Belgium

Introduce e modera:
Prof. Riccardo Prandini
Coordinatore del Dottorato in Sociologia e Ricerca sociale

Per ogni ulteriore informazione contattare:
elena.macchioni@unibo.it
matteo.orlandini@unibo.it