Here you can find an archive of the blog posts and presentation slides from the "Learning for Change" TRANSIT final conference, which took place in Rotterdam, on the 14 and 15th of September 2017... More
After four years of TRANSIT, we round up with a resourceful final newsletter and best wishes for the upcoming holidays... More
Rather than having researchers formulate specific recommendations for policy makers – we invited 13 policy makers from local, national and supra-national governmental organizations to attend the TRANSIT final conference as ‘key listeners’. As the name implies, their task was to listen carefully and to subsequently share their main insights. .. More
In the last month of the TRANSIT project, researchers from the ULB brought together scholars from various backgrounds to organize ‘regards croisés’, confronting perspectives, on a particularly intriguing aspect of TSI theorizing. An aspect that makes it particularly challenging to come up with solid, straightforward explanations of TSI..... More
In these times of transition and uncertainty people long for new positive futures. They often look to established institutions and traditional leaders but these seem to be unable to break away from existing power structures [...]. With the Manifesto for Transformative Social Innovation we want to redirect attention to the emerging movement of transformative social innovation: communities and individuals across the world that are making change on the ground. .. More
We have created a video series in which we asked people who are involved in social innovation – as social innovator, working as enabler, e.g. in a funding agency, or as a researcher – to reflect on it and to illustrate how it is experienced in everyday practice... More
With some pride and more nerves I am sharing my MA Economics for Transition dissertation with you. I have opened it for comments and would be happy if you browse (or read) through it and drop any thoughts that arise, critical remarks, questions, or suggestions in this document! .. More
The last week of October, TRANSIT was invited to present its results at the Final Conference: Social Innovation: Driving Force of Social Change of our ‘sister project’ SI-DRIVE at the Academy of Sciences in Brussels... More
The TRANSIT experience has been liberating. I have enjoyed the privilege of chairing its International Advisory Board, composed of wonderful and knowledgeable colleagues, who have learned and guided this mighty research project over its nearly five years of existence... More
"We tend to put the environment last because we think the first thing we have to do is eliminate poverty. But you can't reduce poverty in a vacuum. You are doing it in an environment". The quote from Wangari Maathai very nicely introduces this short piece of writing. It suggests that in our work in or with social innovation initiatives, we need to connect environmental and social sustainability, and, in some cases, we may even need to give preference to tackling environmental issues, so that we are then able to deal with social ones as well... More
We gladly announce the release of "Social Innovation and Sustainable Consumption: Research and Action for Societal Transformation" - a book that is part of the "Routledge-SCORAI Studies in Sustainable Consumption" series and came to be with the contributions of TRANSIT researchers Julia Backhaus, Edina Vadovics and Julia Wittmayer... More
Curious to learn what happened during the 'Learning for Change'-conference that TRANSIT hosted on 14th and 15th September 2017 in Rotterdam? .. More
Research meets practice, during the TRANSIT final conference on transformative social innovation! The event called “Learning for Change: A Journey through the Theory & Practice of Transformative Social Innovation” takes place on the 14 and 15th of September, in BlueCity 010, Rotterdam. It marks the end of a four-year international research project on transformative social innovation (TRANSIT). The project involved 12 research institutes from Europe and Latin-America and was coordinated by DRIFT, a leading institute for sustainability transitions. A team of international researchers joined efforts to study how social innovations can have a transformative impact on society... More
Cities are often seen as critical sites for societal change and sustainability transitions, but attempts to steer these transitions can create difficulties. How do such transitions relate to the role of cities as sites of economic production, consumption, exchange and innovation, shaped by neoliberalism? This paper reports on four nascent counter-narratives that challenge the neoliberal logic and open up a wider set of possibilities... More
Both public and academic discourses argue that the welfare state is being redefined – and share, in relation to the search for more sophisticated welfare models, a growing interest for ‘social innovation’ (SI). Considering the persistence and complexity of current societal challenges, however, the empowering and transforming potentials of social innovation are not self-evident. Therefore, the relations between social innovation, transformative change and empowerment are unpacked in this article... More
The ESEE 2017 conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics took place in Budapest from 21st-23rd of June, bringing together diverse scholars to discuss critical insights on economic, socio-ecological challenges, degrowth and social movements. .. More
We are living in turbulent times with economic, ecological and social challenges, and significant political turmoil. In recent months, there has been a flurry of public debates on the increasing divides in society, manifested in intercultural tensions, anti-elitist sentiments and ‘post-truth’ media wars around ‘alternative facts’. More than ever, there seems to be a need for researchers and other actors in society to exchange ideas on how to respond to such societal developments. In this series of blogs, we share ideas and reflections on what we can learn from TRANSIT research for facing the current social and political climate. .. More
Is it “the new internet” or just “the new google”? The Blockchain is a digital technology which holds immense potential for social innovation. The first blockchain brought into existence is the Bitcoin. It`s cryptographic security features allowed for the attribution of value to pieces of data. This made a single bitcoin worth practically nothing when it was created, while now it is worth up to a 1000$. .. More
The competition for the 2017 edition of the Social Innovation Award is officially open! This award is granted yearly to an organisation or initiative that is a successful example of Social Innovation. The award will be given for the seventh time at the 2017 European Social Innovation Week... More
Don't miss your chance to apply to this year's European Social Innovation Competition and win one of three 50,000 EUR prizes. .. More
We are living in turbulent times with economic, ecological and social challenges, and significant political turmoil. In recent months, there has been a burst of public debates on the increasing divides in society, manifested in intercultural tensions, anti-elitist sentiments and ‘post-truth’ media wars around ‘alternative facts’. .. More
On the 9th of February a research workshop about Methodological Challenges in Social Innovation Research, organized by DRIFT and ULB, was held in Brussels (Belgium). 22 researchers from different countries and research projects addressed the nitty gritty of doing research on social innovation. .. More
As the holiday season is quickly approaching, we are also drawing the line to add up the milestones of this last half a year... More
Are you a student, public officer, municipal agent, teacher, or otherwise working with social innovation-processes ‘on the ground’? And interested in learning, collective problem-solving and gaining access to a set of tools and recommendations for designing learning processes?.. More
I’ve never written a blog. I was advised to choose something that feels pertinent to me at the moment. Maybe activism, more specifically, community activism. Even more specifically, local community activism. Can local community activism as we experience it in Hungarian Transition somehow be regarded as an example of that focus of much adulation, social innovation?.. More
Last month, TRANSIT hosted a conversation at the European Social Innovation Week in Tilburg, The Netherlands as part of its efforts to co-create its final conference. .. More
On Saturday October 1st 2016, the Basic Income Earth Network celebrated its 30th anniversary at the Catholic University of Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). .. More
TRANSIT researcher Flor Avelino has recently traveled to Hong Kong, where she was invited to present her perspective on transformative social innovation and on the TRANSIT project... More
Who is driving change towards a new economy, how and where is this change initiated? That is what we explored during a drizzling Friday afternoon, at the IABR-2016-next economy... More
Top-down meetings and bottom-up planning results in high quality district for 5.500 residents. In September 2016, the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the Slovakian Presidency of the EU and Cooperative Housing International join forces to design a roadmap with suggestions for future housing policies... More
The soon-to-be-launching Social Innovation Community is bound to build an enabling environment for social innovation and forge new connections between European networks. This new community aims to link existing networks and strengthen these bonds, to fully explore their potential, to generate new social innovations and to spread knowledge more effectively... More
“Social Innovation: contemporary challenges of counter-hegemonic knowings and doings" was the theme of a panel at the Interpretative Policy Analysis (IPA) conference in Hull (UK) from 5-7 July 2016. TRANSIT researchers Bonno Pel, Julia Backhaus, Julia Wittmayer and Tom Bauler had called on interested participants to submit relevant contributions on the topic of governance. .. More
As we were writing our previous newsletters, the trees were shedding their leaves; now they are in full foliage, announcing the warmest of seasons – at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. But before the holidays set in, we would like to share a bit of summer reading, whether for the beach or the office... More
Brazil is a country full of creativity and power, but it also has a history of social problems, including inequality and social exclusion; economic problems, as the recent crisis; environmental problems such as deforestation and pollution of seas, rivers and bays, serious political problems, as you may now see in the press. .. More
Eine gerade fertiggestellte Forschungsstudie nahm die internationale Slow Food Bewegung und zwei regionale convivien auf Ihre gesellschaftliche Wirkung und soziale Innovationskraft in Augenschein. Forscherin Dr. Iris Kunze von der Universität für Bodenkultur Wien untersuchte das convivium Freiburg und berichtet über das Forschungsprojekt, Ergebnisse und Erfahrungen während der Untersuchung... More
Worldwide we see critiques of current economic and institutional arrangements emerging. These critiques are translated into action by initiatives promoting new ways of doing, thinking and organizing around alternative ‘new economies’. All sorts of new economy concepts arise; green, communal, collaborative, sharing, inclusive, solidarity, social, circular and several others. .. More
On April 4th, Delft University of Technology and Tilburg University organized a public seminar on Sustainable Lifestyles, Social Innovation & Transitions. The seminar took place in Delft, and was organized in the context of the European GLAMURS project. .. More
I’m going to start this blog by talking about assets in the NHS. I’ve recently left my previous role in Housing after three years to return to the voluntary sector- and terms like “asset management” and “housing assets” were things that I heard a lot. .. More
From its very beginning the TRANSIT Resource Hub aims to be a place to collect and share information on Social Innovation (mainly in Europe) that is useful to further the TRANSIT project’s objective of developing a theory of Transformative Social innovation. .. More
TRANSIT researchers have just completed eight new case studies on transnational social innovation networks, bringing the total number of studied networks to 20 including 40 local manifestations spread across Europe and Latin America. .. More
The Transition Movement is an interesting example of social innovation because whilst at one level it can be regarded as a form of social innovation in itself (as a novel form of community based organizing), it also creates experimental space for further social innovation to take place. This blog reflects on some of the most important ways in which that space is created... More
On Nov 17, 2015, the day before four of the current European projects (TRANSIT, SI-DRIVE, SIMPACT and CRESSI) convened for the presentation and discussion of preliminary research results and exchange on research methods and approaches, SCORAI Europe organised a workshop in collaboration with the TRANSIT project. The declared aim was to discuss sustainable consumption in the light of and in relation to social innovation and to challenge conceptual underpinnings of the prevailing ‘transition’ and ‘transformation’ discourses.. More
The international partner projects TRANSIT and SI-DRIVE successfully co-organized this year’s key event on social innovation: ‘Social Innovation 2015: Pathways to Social Change. Research, policies and practices in European and global perspectives’ which took place on 18th – 19th November in Vienna, Austria. Over 300 social innovators, policymakers, and researchers gathered from around the world for workshops, meetings and a brokerage event to share insights on social innovation and its role in fostering social change... More
With the mid-point of the project just around the corner, it’s been a flurry of activity to create a transformative autumn for practitioners of social innovation, policymakers and, last but certainly not least, researchers. .. More
Through this blog we’d like to introduce you to our database project on Critical Turning Points in transformative social innovation. In the following we will explain how these Critical Turning Points help to make sense of social innovation processes, how we describe them, and how we seek to collect a diversity of those experiences from about 80 social innovation initiatives in various countries. .. More
Innovation is a word that recently has lost its meaning due to an exhaustive use. Innovation challenges the well-established order, it emerges ¨in the boundaries¨. To some extent, it will question or overcome the existing order. It does not emerge from top-down processes. To innovate is to enter in a risky situation and to deviate from mainstream. In this sense, well-established social actors and economic agents have less innovation capability, they tend to be conservative. Innovation represents the unexpected use of some tool or method, the perversion of a decision or the appropriation of a novelty... More
Food is one of the most essential elements of human life and culture, yet modern food systems are beset with problems concerning human and environmental health and justice. Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) have emerged as concrete solutions to the problems of modern food systems. .. More
The term ‘ecovillage’ was first coined in 1985. It is used since then to describe an ecological oriented kind of so called ‘intentional community’. Intentional communities are self-governed local communities or villages in which people are living and working together on shared properties. Ecovillages were founded in industrial countries in relation with the ecological movement... More
TRANSIT published its first newsletter this May. In it, we share with you stories of social innovation and introduce you to some of the people behind the project... More
Julia Wittmayer (Drift) attended a small gathering of expert social innovation thinkers and practitioners from across Europe to discuss how to create an effective ecosystem for social innovation... More
Adrian Smith was interviewed by the London Project Restart on the roots of grassroots innovation. The podcast is now available!.. More
IESI is looking for exceptional cases where Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have boosted social innovation and created better and more cost effective welfare services for citizens across Europe. If you have a case to share, they’d love to hear from you!.. More
We are honoured to invite you to our midterm conference that will be held in Vienna! We invite social innovators and entrepreneurs, policymakers, intermediaries and researchers from all over Europe to take part in this interactive exchange in the Central-European hub of Vienna. Application is free!.. More
Storytelling is currently the buzzword in marketing. Being an age-old craft, it is used in oral histories, writing, movies and nowadays hot as a technique in content marketing strategy. How can people draw a storyline together? And what is the use of storytelling in theory-development? These questions guided two TRANSIT-workshops, in February and April 2015. This article lists our lessons learned... More
The current European discussion about the role of the State in its regulatory dimensions and providers of social services and the role that social innovation plays in that overall process has come late to Latin America. In general, the region and Argentina in particular, has been part of an economic liberation process and the dismantling of the Welfare State that started in the beginning of the ’70 and reached its zenith in the decade of 1990. In this article we identify the challenges for the social innovation agenda in Latin America and Argentina. .. More
In the context of its mid-term conference in Vienna on 17 November 2015, TRANSIT is co-organizing a one-day workshop with SCORAI Europe: ‘Beyond’ Transition? Understanding and Achieving Sustainable Consumption through Social Innovation .. More
By Veronica Olivotto & Linda Zuijderwijk (IHS). On February 26, 2015 in Rotterdam, we organised the first TRANSIT European workshop for social innovators and entrepreneurs, policy-makers, researchers and other professionals working in the field of social innovation. The goal of the day was to share the thinking and practice that is going into the TRANSIT project and to illustrate it with a selection of the findings of the research so far. We experienced this day as a collective learning process of social innovators and entrepreneurs, policy-makers, researchers and other professionals. In this blog post, we share some highlights of the day... More
Adrian Smith is a TRANSIT researcher from the University of Sussex. He has recently written an in-depth case study report for TRANSIT on FabLabs, of which the summary is also available on the website... More
Case studies contribute to developing knowledge about the dynamics of social innovation and societal transformation. After the first phase of in-depth empirical work has now come to its end, TRANSIT shares its first materials. Over the past year, TRANSIT researchers have interacted with and studied 12 transnational networks – for each network they focused on the network level as well as on 2-3 local manifestations. .. More
Just after our first Anniversary, we are looking for additional transnational networks and/or movements of social innovation for the TRANSIT project. Share your ideas with us before 20th March 2015. .. More
René Kemp (UNU-MERIT - visiting professor at the Australian Innovation Research Centre, Hobart, Tasmania) argues that social innovation is a phenomenon of great importance to society for dealing with societal ills of exclusion, rising health costs, environmental degradation and personal ills. For this to happen it is necessary that society orients itself more towards social innovation. There are compelling reasons for this to happen as he hopes to show, using examples of Timebanking, Ashoka and Open Science. .. More
Presentation by René Kemp at the Australian Innovation Research Centre in Hobart, Tasmania, November 2014. He introduces the phenomenon of social innovation. .. More
By Mariano Fressoli. Los días 22 y 23 de noviembre, en el marco del Festival Noviembre Electrónico del Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, se realizó el congreso Interacción 3D en el Centro Cultural San Martín. El evento fue organizado por la revista sobre fabricación digital I3D y contó con talleres sobre materiales de impresión 3D, exposición de fabricantes y proveedores de insumos de fabricación digital y corte laser, muestras y conferencias. Steps América Latina participó activamente de la reunión durante el fin de semana y les trae algunas impresiones del evento... More
By Bonno Pel. For those seeking far-reaching reforms and radically alternative ways of doing things, social innovation is a promising concept. It reminds that there are so many initiatives and experiments going on that address the persistent problems of our time - and that these are no less important than technological innovations... More
By Flor Avelino. The first Synthesis Workshop in TRANSIT took place in September. 25 scholars from across the world gathered to discuss the role of ‘game-changers’ in transformative social innovation processes, from the perspective of various inter-disciplines and world regions. .. More
By Adrian Smith. Within the TRANSIT project, the research team has been considering how different fields of research might cast our own social innovation research in an informative light. .. More
TRANSIT-Workshop: “Networks, Technology and Innovation for Inclusive Development” in the Quilmes National University, Argentina. .. More
Sharing knowledge among researchers, innovators, policymakers and others helps ideas to spread quickly. Therefore, we welcome you on this resource hub on transformative social innovation. .. More
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