Building Capacity for Innovation in the Social Sector
Social inequities such as poverty and homelessness are intersectional and complex; they are persistent, wicked and their solutions are elusive. Building capacity for innovation in the social sector, i.e., encouraging the adoption of practices and processes designed for radical solutions to social problems, is an increasingly widespread strategy.
Because innovation and change in the social sector are driven by knowledge processes, universities as anchor institutions would seem to have a natural role to play in the social impact ecosystem. Campus-community knowledge collaborations and innovation partnerships can be a vector of impact and, if the conditions are right, academic engagement can increase capacity in the social impact ecosystem.
