What is Open Social Innovation?

Before you start the last part of this week about Open Social Innovation get to know Amelie Riedesel by watching the video.

We are facing enormous global, social and economic challenges. Problems such as climate change, demographic development, the overuse of natural resources and the Corona pandemic can hardly be solved by conventional policies and within existing structures.

What is needed, therefore, is a fundamental system transformation with the aim of social, economic and technological developments in such a way that they complement each other. This requires new ways of working together, innovating and collaboration. This is where Open Social Innovation comes in. Open Social Innovation is a process of solving societal challenges in a collaborative manner with all relevant stakeholders from politics, business, science and civil society.

It is based on the assumption that knowledge and an interest in solutions to social challenges exists in various areas of society. However, this knowledge and interest is not effectively utilized through conventional problem-solving mechanisms, which are often organized on a strictly sectoral basis. Open Social Innovation therefore deliberately relies on an open and participatory approach in order to bring together people and institutions from different areas of society and to enable exchanges on an equal footing. Thus, Open Social Innovation sees the solution of social problems as a collective task.

Learning Outcomes

• With the end of the week you gained a theoretical and practical understanding of concepts such as social innovation, open innovation and open social innovation.
• You get deep insights into how Open Social Innovation can be applied in practice.
• You understand the potentials and challenges of open social innovation processes.
• You learn about how the public administration and the funding sector can help to institutionalize open social innovation processes.