Presentation in the Social Frontiers Conference organized by NESTA, Glasgow Caledonian University and the TEPSIE project, with support from the Social Innovation Exchange, The Rockefeller Foundation and the University of Oxford. Looking for research that will push knowledge and practice of social innovation, and set a collective research agenda for the next ten years.

1. www.ingenio.upv.es
www.bath.ac.uk/management/faculty
How Empowering is
Social Innovation?
Identifying Barriers to
Participation in
Community-driven
Innovation
Dr. Mónica Edwards-Schachter
Dr. Svenja Tams
Social Innovation Research Conference
‘Social frontiers: the next edge of social innovation research’
14th-15th November 2013, London (UK)

2. Means?
Building the collective intelligence
(on-line & off-line …)
Ends?
2

3. OBJECTIVE
To explore knowledge generation and
power dynamics in collaborative
innovation between private, public and
civil actors in Living Lab (LLs) contexts

4. CROSS-SECTOR PARTNERSHIPS IN NEW INNOVATION SPACES
 Growing diversity of
Bajaj Rural Development Lab (India)
http://www.cmu.edu/bajaj/
societal experiments and
‘innovation labs’: Living
Labs, Change Labs, Rural
Labs, Urban Labs, Social
Spaces of Research and
Innovation (SSRI), social
clusters …
 LLs are new models of organizing collaborative innovation
involving a plurality of actors from business, government and civil
sectors, named as cross-sector partnerships (XSPs) and PrivatePublic-People Partnerships (PPPPs )

5. LL: The European Network of LL (ENoLL) definition
 LLs are real-life test and experimentation environments
where users and producers co-create innovations
 LLs have been characterised by the European Commission
as PPPPs for user-driven open innovation
 Openess
 Co-creation
 Exploration
 Experimentation
 Evaluation
Living
Lab
Social

6. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
 How do actors in community-based innovations
perceive empowerment and participation in the
knowledge generation process?
 Which conditions enable, or constrain, empowerment
and participation in community-driven innovation?

7. Bridging divides in knowledge generation
Collaborations can take place in an environment marked by
competition, conflict and imbalance of power among multiple actors
7

8. Knowledge generation and power dynamics in
PPPPs: theoretical approach (‘practical lens’)
 Power and knowledge are
constructed in relations and
social practices with use,
struggle and negotiation of
conscious and unconscious
strategies
RELATIONS
(Foucault, 1977;
Giddens 1982, 1984)
CULTURE
 Reproduction of
STRUCTURE/AGENCY
 Sets of rules and resources that actors
draw upon as they act and produce
knowledge and power in the social
system
 Social practices reproduce mechanisms
of exclusion at the bottom and the top
(DiMaggio, 1988; Heiskala, 2001, 2007;
Scott, 2008; Alasuutari, 2010)
‘hidden’ power,
‘embodied
dispositions’ and
socially stratified
spaces (‘natural
order of things’)
(Bordieu, 1989;
Hayward 2000)
Image: Untitled, Alexander Calder (1898-1976)

9. METHODOLOGY
 Literature review and empirical study of Living Labs
(N= 120) using both quantitative and qualitative
data
 Qualitative methodology: Case study, including indepth interviews and a focus group meeting

10. FINDINGS: The role of users and communities in LLs
 Multiple
N = 120 LLs
100
85
70.8
80
% 60
25.8
40
20
0
User centred
User centred
(testing)
(detection needs)
User driven
(co-creators)
LLs for social innovation #
the social impact of LLs
interpretations and
purposes of
‘community’ and
‘users’/based-centreddriven-led’
innovations
 Power dynamics are
ignored in LL s and
collaborative
innovation

11. CASE STUDY: CVIDA VILA-REAL LL
 Informal LL emerged as a PPPPs
organization with support of the
municipal government
LOCAL COMPANIES
AND AUTHORITIES
 Generated in a dialogic process with
LOCAL
RESOURCES
intermediation of CVida Vila-real, a
non-profit association (2008 to 2010)
innovations
 increasing the neighbours’
participation and collaborative
governance processes in the city
PEOPLE
 People-centered model focused in
 identifying needs
 favouring community-driven
•Innovation opportunities
•Improvement opportunities
•Governance support
ITC
SYSTEM
PEOPLE
NEEDS
Quality of life
Source: Institute of Biomechanics of Valencia (IBV)
http://www.cvida.com
http://es-es.facebook.com/CvidaVilareal

12. FINDINGS: How do actors perceive empowerment and
participation in community-based innovations?
 ‘Co-creation’ is seen as a non-problematic
mechanism which implicitly contributes to
social cohesion and SIs
 Collaboration is perceived throughout
different ‘lens’: ‘Instrumental/efficiency’
versus ‘transformative’ discourses
 ‘Political manoeuvrings and open conflicts’
can have both positive and negative
outcomes on effective empowerment and
participation
 Community leaders act as ‘knowledge’
brokers/mediators with an important role
in the ‘stabilization’ of the social relations

13. FINDINGS: Which conditions enable, or constrain, empowerment
and participation in community-driven innovation?
 Inequalities and lack of skills and
capacities
 Knowledge perceived as a power
struggle to compete for funding
opportunities
 Conflicting interests (e.g., actors
don’t expect that collaborative
innovation be a win-win situation
for participants if some of them
have ‘knowledge’/expertise and
privileges in the access to
information)
 The ‘place’ to collaborate matters
(physical and social spaces that
enable or constrain
dialogue, trust, transparency, recipro
city, identity …)

14. CONCLUSION
 Governance of LLs and alternative models of collaborative innovation
needs to consider how the power dynamics (relational, structural and
cultural potential barriers) can enable or constrain the participation of
people as ‘users’ and ‘co-creators’ of knowledge
 Empowerment and participation can be affected by knowledge
asymmetries and struggles between different rationalities
(e.g., ‘instrumental’ versus ‘transformative’)
 Community leaders have a relevant role to improve participation, acting as
‘mediators’ in the social interactions, enabling confidence, identity
recognition and self-worth

15. A FINAL COMMENT
 A critical and reflective attitude and a new
research agenda are required to understand
power dynamics and the meaning of
knowledge and ‘co-creation’ beyond the
current ‘traditional knowledge bases’ in
collaborative innovation processes

16. innovation
SOCIAL
innovations
TECHNOLOGICAL
innovations
critical
knowledge
indigenous
knowledge
local
knowledge
tacit
knowledge
ethnographic
knowledge
technological
knowledge
analytic
knowledge
tacit
knowledge
scientifc
knowledge
synthetic
knowledge
symbolic and artistic
knowledge
Diversity of LIVING LABS – Multiple actors

17. THANKS!
Dr. Mónica Edwards-Schachter
moed@ingenio.upv.es
Dr. Svenja Tams
s.tams@bath.ac.uk