Social Innovation and Urban Governance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Pradel-Miquel ◽  
Ana Cano-Hila ◽  
Marisol García Cabeza
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Innovation

Jam and Justice: Co-producing Urban Governance for Social Innovation, ESRC & Mistra Urban Futures

Impact ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-40
Author(s):  
Beth Perry ◽  
Bert Russell ◽  
Catherine Durose ◽  
Liz Richardson ◽  
Alex Whinnom
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Urban Futures

scholarly journals New Public Institutional Forms and Social Innovation in Urban Governance: Insights from the “Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics” (MONUM) in Boston

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmelina Bevilacqua ◽  
Yapeng Ou ◽  
Pasquale Pizzimenti ◽  
Guglielmo Minervino
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
New Public ◽  
Eu Policies ◽  
Organizational Pattern ◽  
Innovation Practices

This paper investigates how public sector institutions change their form and approach to achieve a socially innovative urban governance. The “Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics” (MONUM) in Boston, Massachusetts (USA) proves a representative case of innovation in the public sector. As a new type of government agency, it is essentially an open innovation lab dedicated to innovative evidence-based policymaking. Following a new dynamic organizational pattern in urban governance, MONUM is conducive to project-oriented social innovation practices and horizontal multi-sectoral collaboration among the three societal sectors: public, private, and civil. Its results suggest that first, the peculiarity of MONUM lies in its hybrid and boundary-blurring nature. Second, new institutional forms that experiment with urban governance can rely on multi-sectoral collaboration. Third, MONUM has experimented with a systemic approach to social innovation following the “design thinking theory.” The MONUM case can contribute to the current debate in Europe on the need to harmonize EU policies for an effective social inclusion by promoting the application of the place-sensitive approach.

scholarly journals Transforming the relational dynamics of urban governance: How social innovation research can create a trajectory for learning and change

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (14) ◽  
pp. 2868-2884 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koen Bartels
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Relational Theory ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Relational Dynamics ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
Innovation Research ◽  
Transformative Potential ◽  
Learning And Change

This article examines how social innovation (SI) research can co-produce transformative change in cities. A key challenge is to diffuse and sustain SIs in ways that transform the relational webs that constitute local spaces and their governance. The relational approach to SI is conceptually promising in this respect, but its foundations and practices need to be further developed. Therefore, I develop a relational ‘theory–methods package’ of practice theory and action research. By co-producing immediately usable insights, experiences and artefacts in the daily practice of SI, this approach enables researchers to gradually create conditions for a transformative trajectory of learning and change in urban governance. I critically appraise four research practices in the context of SI in Dutch urban governance and reflect on the transformative potential of this relational theory–methods package.

Social Innovation and Civil Society in Urban Governance: Strategies for an Inclusive City

Urban Studies ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (11) ◽  
pp. 2007-2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Gerometta ◽  
Hartmut Haussermann ◽  
Giulia Longo
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Governance Strategies

Analyzing Citizen Participation and Engagement in European Smart Cities

2019 ◽  
pp. 089443931987747 ◽  
Author(s):  
María E. Cortés-Cediel ◽  
Iván Cantador ◽  
Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Public Value

With the advent of smart cities (SCs), governance has been placed at the core of the debate on how to create public value and achieve a high quality of life in urban environments. In particular, given that public value is rooted in democratic theory and new technologies that promote networking spaces have emerged, citizen participation represents one of the principal instruments to make government open and close to the citizenry needs. Participation in urban governance has undergone a great development: from the first postmodernist ideals of countering expert dominance to today’s focus on learning and social innovation, where citizen participation is conceptualized as co-creation and co-production. Despite this development, there is a lack of research to know how this new governance context is taking place in the SC arena. Addressing this situation, in this article, we present an exhaustive survey of the research literature and a deep study of the experience in participative initiatives followed by SCs in Europe. Through an analysis of 149 SC initiatives from 76 European cities, we provide interesting insights about how participatory models have been introduced in the different areas and dimensions of the cities, how citizen engagement is promoted in SC initiatives, and whether the so-called creative SCs are those with a higher number of projects governed in a participatory way.

Social innovation as a ‘magic concept’ for policy-makers and its implications for urban governance

2020 ◽  
pp. 147309522093483
Author(s):  
Francesca Bragaglia
Keyword(s):  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Way

This article proposes a critical reflection on the concept of social innovation, arguing that it can be understood as a ‘magic concept’ as theorized by Pollitt and Hupe. It is a pervasive and positive notion in academia, policies and politics. The notion of social innovation is therefore deconstructed into the characteristics that make it so seductive: the multiplicity of meanings it can take on, its positive normative charge, its ability to generate consensus and its global marketability. This investigation underlines the way in which the understanding of social innovation may have profound repercussions in the ways in which decision-makers are reshaping urban governance.

scholarly journals The double bind of social innovation: Relational dynamics of change and resistance in neighbourhood governance

Urban Studies ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (16) ◽  
pp. 3789-3805 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koen Bartels
Keyword(s):  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Competitive Dynamics ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Sustainable Change ◽  
Relational Dynamics ◽  
Institutional Actors ◽  
Communicative Signals

While current discourse promotes social innovation as a normative good, in practice it is highly contested by institutionalised ways of thinking, acting and organising. Concurrently stimulating and resisting innovation creates a ‘double bind’ of conflicting communicative signals that weaken capacities for joint sense making and sustainable change. I develop a meta-theoretical framework that explains what is involved in these relational dynamics of change and resistance, how these can be assessed and improved, and why the double bind both necessitates and inhibits substantive change. Analysing relational dynamics in a case of neighbourhood governance in Amsterdam, I argue that social innovators should be prepared to constructively confront rationalistic evaluation, defensiveness, and experiential detachment while institutional actors should welcome fundamental relational transformations of hierarchical and competitive dynamics institutionalised in urban governance.

scholarly journals The social innovation–(re)politicisation nexus: Unlocking the political in actually existing smart city campaigns? The case of SmartCity Cologne, Germany

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 894-915 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Leitheiser ◽  
Alexander Follmann
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The Social ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
Urban Futures ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Urban Commons

As a prominent and performative discourse, The Smart City has the potential to shape urban futures. Yet, its mostly top-down implementation and dominantly technocratic definition of problems raises critiques of The Smart City as the latest version of a series of post-political and neoliberal visions of urban governance. However, as smart cities are implemented into ‘actually existing’ strategies locally, they are always negotiated and translated into place-specific contexts. Beyond critiquing the powerful discourse of The Smart City, the social innovation–(re)politicisation nexus (SIRN) spells out a framework for contesting and co-producing radically transformative smart city visions and politics as they take shape on the ground. Linking the empirical case study of the ‘top-down’ implementation of SmartCity Cologne, Germany, to current ‘bottom-up’ discourses on reclaiming the urban commons, we show how ‘true’ and ‘real’ social innovation must go hand-in-hand with a re-politicisation of hegemonic logics and discursive framings. In doing so, this paper makes theoretical and empirical contributions to public and academic discourse on which governance practices, methods and policies could contribute to radical transformations towards a ‘truly’ smart and sustainable urban future.

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