When talking about innovation, we automatically think of a new technology developed in a company lab as part of their R&D to support their growth. However, this does not capture the whole picture of innovation. Innovation is essential for companies to grow and for societies to prosper.
In this article, we’ll look closely at social innovation and how creativity can drive it.
What is social innovation?
The process of creating and implementing innovative, effective solutions to social or environmental problems is referred to as social innovation. Whether derived from national policies, governmental or non-governmental groups, such solutions should better fulfil contemporary societal requirements than previous efforts.
Social innovation is intended to have a long-term, large-scale impact. Traditionally, non-profit organizations have promoted social innovation, but the corporate world is equally eager to solve society’s concerns.
The importance of social innovation
The world is more interconnected than ever, and one country’s problems can quickly spread to another. The world is facing slow economic growth, high inflation rates, war, poverty and diseases. All these are social issues that cannot go on forever, and we need to find solutions as soon as possible.
That’s when businesses step in, as all these big social issues pose great business opportunities. Simply put, we need to put our best innovative minds to good use to provide solutions to the world’s greatest challenges and to align business and social benefits.
Throughout the years, we’ve come up with more than one way to measure prosperity. When GDP was considered the only way to measure prosperity, now we investigate statistics like happiness, individual freedoms, democracy, financial wellbeing etc.
Changing how we view the world and being more open-minded about what prosperity truly is can change our mindset. In an interconnected world, the challenges are endless, and we must constantly find new ways to deal with them. Social innovation can make us think more creatively about social entrepreneurship and for-profit businesses.
We tend to mistake social businesses as some form of charity which is false. Particularly social innovation adds two critical components to innovation which are social and economic sustainability.
Creativity is the fuel of social innovation
Being innovative means doing something new. Something out of the ordinary. Something that none has thought or implemented before. But that’s why innovation is so difficult to achieve.
To be innovative means to break the barriers of the unknown and expand our horizons. To do so, it takes a lot of skill, dedication, and creativity to come up with new ideas. Which is not a one-time time but needs to be constant.
Creativity allows us to see things differently. It allows us to identify when something might be possible in the first place when others are “blind” to it. On the other hand, innovation, or social innovation for that matter, is the next step and goes hand in hand with creativity. As soon as we can identify a possible solution to a problem, innovation steps in to make it real.
For this reason, it is important to make people more creative. Even though many people think of themselves as not being creative, that’s not true. Everyone has the innate ability to be creative, and we all exercise it daily.
Creativity is not limited to artistic expression, as many believe. We use creativity every day to make decisions or solve problems. Therefore, everyone has it to some degree. The good news is that there are things you can do to increase your creativity levels.
Conclusion
Based on all these, and getting back to social innovation and creativity, they go hand-in-hand. We will be able to find solutions to the world’s greatest challenges only if the world becomes more creative. That’s why, when thinking about the future and creating a better world, the creative sectors cannot be left out.
The problem with the above is that the connection between the cultural and creative industries is not obvious, and people can’t realize the connection. Not only do the CCIs employ creative people that could contribute to social innovations and make the world think more creatively overall.
The Contribution of The Social and Creative Project
The Social and Creative project has made a really good job in promoting the importance of the cultural and creative industries in creating a better future through social innovation. Especially in times of crisis, culture is one of the sectors mostly neglected and not seen as a priority when the opposite should be true.
This EU project from the Interreg MED programme sought to reinstate the importance of culture to create a more creative world that can deal with our most urgent challenges in the most innovative way possible.
To learn more about the project, visit the official website.
