Social innovation education as a collaborative process: Empirically based reflections

Abstract

Based on the empirical data gathered within a project developing social innovation and entrepreneurial education (Social Innovation and Entrepreneurial Education in European Social Services, SIED), we create a conceptual framework distinguishing three modes of cocreative social innovation and entrepreneurial education, that is, education that involves the participants creating social innovation projects. The three modes include consultancy, embedded prototyping, and disembedded prototyping. In the case of consultancy, the social innovation developed by participants evolves around a challenge explicitly formulated by a specific organization(s)/group. These projects are either commissioned by an organization or developed by employees of a given organization within a social innovation course. The second mode, embedded prototyping, involves participants developing prototypes for meeting a societal challenge within a certain group in a specific location. The embedded prototype does not involve any commitments and expectations about implementation. The third mode, disembedded prototyping, evolves around the development of prototypes that could potentially be helpful in meeting some generic challenges typical for certain groups or professions.