Vienna Declaration 2011
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Please find the results of the process compiled in the official paper of the Vienna Declaration here: Vienna Declaration_final_10Nov2011
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This is an amazing project! For sure it is overdue as well!
I would like to make a comment bridging results of sessions 1.2 and 1.7 (also touching upon 2.2, 2.4. and 2.5).
Social Innovation as a term might refer to innovation as a social process or to innovation in the social problem space. From http://www.socialinnovation2011.eu I understand that “Social innovations are innovations that are social in both their ends and their means.” I think exactly THIS statement is key.
My own field of research is management and entrepreneurship. In this research steam we cope with two related phenomena: social entrepreneurship and unplanned behavior. Literature on the former finds that social issues can very well be addressed with the entrepreneurial method. It is NOT necessary to solve all social problems via NGOs and charity. The latter finds that many projects CANNOT be defined ex ante but are created within a social process. Such a process is EFFECTUATION. Instead of starting with precise goals, expert entrepreneurs show to work with their means and with contingencies, engage self-selecting partners quickly, work with those partners’ commitments and – maybe most important – take care of the matter that nobody in the process commits more than she or he can afford to lose.
Effectuation is a new approach in social sciences (2.5) that leads to business innovation in a social process (1.2), has started to being tested in a variety of contexts (1.7), explains how value is created in a social process (2.2), builds on participation and a special form of self-management (2.4).
I would be happy to contribute further.
Kind regards
Dr. René Mauer
Examplary literature:
Brettel, M., Mauer, R., Engelen, A. and Küpper, D. in press. Corporate effectuation: Entrepreneurial action and its impact on R&D project performance. In: Journal of Business Venturing.
Dew, N., J.S. Read, S.D. Sarasvathy, and R.Wiltbank 2009. Effectual versus predictive logics in entrepreneurial decision-making: Differences between experts and novices. Journal of Business Venturing, 24 (4) 287-309.
Sarasvathy, S. D. 2001. Causation and effectuation: Toward a theoretical shift from economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency. Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review, 26(2): 243-263.
Sarasvathy, S. D. 2008. Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise. Camberley Mitcham, VIC, Australia: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd Central Book Services.
Dear colleague,
thank you very much for contributing to the topic – yet also to the formation and extension of a growing community of researchers concerned with social innovation.
You point to the critical fact that social praxis emerges in processes which can not be sketched idealistically and than implemented in a more or less predictable way of creating reality according to the model. You describe this process as effectuation and provide relevant references. This is extremely relevant, because it confronts the much cited prospect of ‘scaling’ of social innovation with its socially inherent limitations.
We are now in the process of reviewing the ‘Vienna Declaration’, and we will build on experinces and lessons learned in the framework of the ‘European School of Social Innovation’ …
Please stay tuned, and yes: further contributions very welcome!
Prof. Hochgerner,
We are SocioNext, we are a Netherlands-based Foundation actively involved in collaborating with multi-sectoral partners in developing education Programs that forward social entrepreneurship issues to the forefront of higher education focus.
On November 26-27 (tentatively) this year, in Amsterdam, we are organizing Europe’s first Social Innovation and Impact Investment Conference centered on the spirit of “multi-disciplinary and cross-sector collaboration for social impact”. To that note we hope that someone of your calibre could honor us with your presence.
We are of course available to discuss and introduce our concept further with you. When would be a good time to possibly put in a call to you?
I am reachable via Skype, and mobile phone number: +31 .
Regards from a chilly Amsterdam,
Our response is with regard to points “Diversity, democracy, participation: Which lessons to learn from (education) Research: Which new indicators can be developed for measuring the short-term and long-term effects of the educational system (like quality of life, well-being, innovativeness)?” and “Innovate the concept – the humanities and social innovation: How best to harness the distinctive contributions of Humanities-based knowledge and methods of enquiry (time: history; ideas and concepts: philosophies and worldviews; communication: linguistics etc.) for successful social innovation initiatives?”
As in many instances, the European Union’s funding of humanities research is minimal. It is good to see that that the Vienna Declaration includes the field. Our proposal is with regard to the following: Inclusion versus essentialism(s) remains a problem with regard to knowledge, as well as social interaction in the European Union in virtually all of its member states (see, e.g., Tötösy de Zepetnek, “Interculturalism”; Tötösy de Zepetnek and López-Varela Azcárate). Based on previous and current work (e.g., Tötösy de Zepetnek, “The New Humanities,” “The Anti-Other”), our interest includes the research and application of intermediality in education with particular attention to the use of literature in its contextual, global, and comparative perspectives (see, e.g., Rutten and Soetaert; Seyfried; Soetaert, Bourgonjon, Rutten; Vandermeersche and Soetaert). Our proposal is based in the work of the Ghent University and Purdue University Press Program of “Education, Culture, and Interliteracy” (see also the forthcoming international conference “Literacy and Society, Culture, Media, & Education,” Ghent University 9-11 February 2012 http://www.literacyconference2012.ugent.be). In Europe, unlike in many other parts of the world, new media and the internet is wide spread and used in society. While the European Union has programs incl. funding with regard to new media and education, in our view the said programs lack projects with regard to the humanities and literature specifically and hence our interest and focus to encourage more work and funding in the field. Our proposal to include in the Vienna Declaration is as follows: “Intermediality, innovation, and paradigm change for inclusion: How to innovate curricula and practices in education at all levels by harnessing literature — and cultural production altogether — in (inter)mediality?”
Works Cited
Rutten, Kris, and Ronald Soetaert. “Intermediality, Rhetoric, and Pedagogy.” Thematic issue New Perspectives on Material Culture and Intermedial Practice. Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Asunción López-Varela Azcárate, Haun Saussy, and Jan Mieszkowski. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 13.3 (2011): http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol13/iss3/11.
Seyfried, Clemens. “Mapping Intercultural Education with Trust-based Learning.” Mapping the World, Culture, and Border-crossing. Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and I-Chun Wang. Kaohsiung: National Sun Yat-sen UP, 2010. 31-38.
Soetaert, Ronald, and Kris Rutten. “Comparative Cultural Studies and Pedagogy.” The Cambridge Companion to Comparative Literature and Comparative Cultural Studies. Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and Tutun Mukherjee. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2012. Forthcoming.
Soetaert, Ronald, Jeroen Bourgonjon, and Kris Rutten. “Video Games as Equipment for Living.” Thematic issue New Perspectives on Material Culture and Intermedial Practice. Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Asunción López-Varela Azcárate, Haun Saussy, and Jan Mieszkowski. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 13.3 (2011): http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol13/iss3/8.
Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. “Interculturalism and Europe.” Pädaktuell. Fachzeitschrift der Pädagogischen Akademie der Diözese Linz 1 (2006): 4-6.
Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. “The Anti-Other in Post-1989 Austria and Hungary.” Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies. Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and Louise O. Vasvári. West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 2011. 332-43.
Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. “The New Humanities: The Intercultural, the Comparative, and the Interdisciplinary.” Globalization and the Futures of Comparative Literature. Ed. Jan M. Ziolkowski and Alfred J. López. Thematic Section The Global South 1.2 (2007): 45-68.
Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven, and Asunción López-Varela Azcárate. “Education, Interculturalism, and Mapping a New Europe.” Mapping the World, Culture, and Border-crossing. Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and I-Chun Wang. Kaohsiung: National Sun Yat-sen UP, 2010. 38-49.
Vandermeersche, Geert, and Ronald Soetaert. “Intermediality as Cultural Literacy and Teaching the Graphic Novel.” Thematic issue New Perspectives on Material Culture and Intermedial Practice. Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Asunción López-Varela Azcárate, Haun Saussy, and Jan Mieszkowski. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 13.3 (2011): http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol13/iss3/20.
Actually there is an activity going on right now to strengthen the position of SSH in ‘Horizon 2020′:
“With this message we would like to invite you to sign an Open Letter addressed to the European Commissioner for Research and Innovation (http://www.eash.eu/openletter2011/), alerting her to the vital insights that Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities (SSH) contribute to address Europe’s and the world’s Grand Societal Challenges.” (ALLEA, the Ass. of all European Academies)
I would also like to point to the fact that in the current Call for proposals of the FP7-SSH programme a number of topics are specified where Humanities should be included in a definitely decisive way.
Concerning the proposal of including curricula innovations by harnessing literature in inter-mediality: We will include this in the documentation for further elaboration; however, at the current stage of procedures we need to produce a very short and focused document that may serve as stepping stone to next achievements.
I wonder if the Commissioner will be confused by the percentages because they add up to more than 100%. Furthermore is there a likelihood of her priorizing the items according to their popularity as measured by the percentages? We who participated in the voting understand the meanings of the figures but it is quite possible that a reader might conclude that there are only a couple of issues that got more than 50% and therefore only they should be considered. Just a thought! Stu Conger
Hi Stu,
this is just a short one: We certainly will avoid confusing the Commissioner MGQ The relevance of those topics (statements …) highlighted will be explained in the accompanying text (also point to existent background material), and not by percentages.
I have looked at the Declaration through my former eyes as a senior bureaucrat in the Canadian government and assumed that the document was intended to guide me in supporting future research and development of social innovations. In so-doing I am a little confused by the phraseology as it does not consistently say what my office should do. With this in mind I have tried to rephrase the 14 research topics below. I have also renumbered them as I don’t understand the difference between the PS1s and the PS2s
1. Develop a wider, more inclusive definition of social innovation, what it is and what it is not, including a clear definition of the social economy, civil society, business firms, and the state.
2. Clarify the role of social process (collaboration formats and organizational structures) in business innovation
3. Determine the opportunities and risks of social media for enabling large scale and systemic social innovation
4. Explicate the relationship between service innovations and social innovations
5. Regularly involve the social sciences in conceptualizing how: (1) social impact of technology and (2) resources for social innovation can be monitored, measured and assessed.
6. In programs designed to facilitate societally engaged ageing ensure that lifelong learning is fully engaged
7. Forgive me but I can’t reword this because I can’t agree with it. I don’t see why an innovation must work in several societies before it can be widely adopted in one.
8. (formerly PS2.1) I don’t understand this at all. Does it mean that all countries should be democratic?
9. Develop methods for measuring the value created by social innovations
10. Develop methods for ….. (I am a lazy typist)
11. Ascertain the best methods, such as use of social media, for popular participation and self-management in the development and popularization of social innovations
12. OK as is!
13. OK
14. What do we want the Commissioner to do about this statement?
Please forgive my arrogance in thinking that I could improve on this important document
Stu
Thanks a lot! Even if not all (your) phrases recommended will appear 1:1, the most relevant issue your considerations point to is the following: The sentences were formulated and selected by (mainly) scientists and researchers. Thus, even if we find a very clear and straight forward research topic, most of what has been proposed misses out on the first part we wanted to get: ‘the most needed social innovation’ in the area. Detectives working on this
I sympathise very much with the idea of the conference as well as with the idea of the Vienna declaration. However, I think it is urgent to argue for the need of not only the social sciences in innovation but also the humanities. In the declaration I think this perspective was put aside more than was my impression through reading the earlier documents. What often is fogotten on the field of innovation are the broader, and at the same time sharper, perspectives of the contribution of the humanities, these difficult questions on WHY these issues of social innovation matters – the existential perspectives that contextualises and historises the important questions of our time. But how do we do that in the context of innovation, and even social innovation? I would really like to discuss these questions further.
Also, from a global perspective these are some of the strengths in an European tradition that should be develope in a new including way. It must be attached to social innovation.
At the conference there was just one session treating the humanities in particular ( 2.6), and one can see from the voting session that ALL FOUR suggestions were treated as equally important – something to consider in the future.
I am very open for further constructive discussions on this important issue.
I totally agree with you that contextualisation is key to understand and making viable a more comprehensive concept of innovation. In what I hope to achieve by working towards study programmes, particularly a PhD programme on social innovation, is to emphasise research on the history of innovation and the impact of innovation in different regions, social sectors, and cultures. So this may be one line of future collaboration.
With some colleagues from social sciences, economics and philosophy we published the following book: Jiri Loudin/Klaus Schuch (ed.), 2009: Innovation Cultures. Challenge and Learning Strategy. Prague: Filosofia.
(with my contribution under the title ‘Innovation processes in the dynamics of social change’)
Se viene fomentando y creando un buen sistema de emprendimientos sociales y redes que le apuntan a las innovaciones sociales, en Colombia, ciudad de Medellín, contamos con una entidad que nos convoca y aglomera frente al tema: Comfama, es una entidad que lidera este tema, los avances son muy buenos, en nuestra empresa venomos trabajando en la formulación de proyectos con emprendimientos de base social, rentables y sostenibles.
Being a young and diverse country means we do not yet share a common view on divisive social issues such as gay marriage, gun control and abortion. However, a common thread that we share is our concern for the economy. A recent survey from McLaughlin & Associates shows the economy and jobs are the top issues that will have the most impact on our future.,
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