Geoff Mulgan on the Need for Social Innovation

Social Innovation Europe

Why, what and where next?

Geoff Mulgan, Chief ExecutiveYoung Foundation


Why – and why now?• Europe has a great history of social innovation,

experiment, enterprise and action• But too often social creativity is punished not

rewarded; what’s great isn’t grown• Europe is too often for the big; the

incumbents; interest groups attached to problems rather than solutions

As Europe 2020 recognised: we have no choice but to speed up our search for better solutions

to the big challenges

Mutation: creativity to multiply options

Selection: deciding what works

Replication: growing the successes

What is to be done?


THE SOCIAL INNOVATION INITIATIVE ...

1. A common language:•a broader view of innovation – services as well as things; the public sector and civil society as well as business;

• a shared understanding - SI is not just about NGOs, but all innovations that are ‘social in their ends as well as their means’, that meet needs, but also leave behind a stronger capacity for societies to act

•a 21st century view of growth – a world where the biggest industries will include health, education, environment, and where the economic and social will be entwined in the next generation of systems for care, food, energy

2. A shared network

Linking innovators with emerging ideas and projects to learn faster from each other

3. Better policies

For investment, regional growth, R&D, employment, social programmes, public procurement, the internal market for services - and how to get the biggest impact for each Euro spent

4. Better methods and skillsGrowing skills around finance, design, incubation, experimentation, evaluation in all sectors

1 Prompts

2 Proposals

3 Prototypes

4 Sustaining5 Scaling

6 Systemic change

5. Removing the barriers and helping the best ideas to grow

Raising our ambition – and prioritising action: ‘just do it’


‘Omnia vivunt, omnia inter se conexa’ (everything lives, everything is connected) Cicero

‘It’s amazing what you can achieve if you don’t care who gets the credit’ Harry Truman

Geoff Mulgan on the Need for Social Innovation

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