Within the HE context, social innovation is an area of growing interest. From the growth of Ashoka U to a growing body of research, interest is growing for greater depth of understanding in this area. Social Innovation Connect, wants to bring together key researchers and academics from across the UK to discuss their local social innovation context. SIC is embedded within the Scottish ecosystem, but across the UK, the context varies widely, and we want to have a conversation about the nuances and differences, but also our similarities.

Universities are often seen as removed from their communities, and considering the wealth of resources, knowledge and capacity available within universities; more needs to be done to ‘turn the university inside out’. Within the Social Innovation ecosystem, even the use of the term ‘Social Innovation’ can be an alienating and exclusive term. We want to understand how we can bridge the gap between the research and study within universities and bring the benefits of this to our local communities. We face unprecedented challenges around the world today; from climate change, to health inequalities, to poverty and social cohesion. Higher education is often at the forefront of thinking and investigation into these wicked societal problems, but being disconnected from our local communities hampers connections that could change the tide on some of these key issues.

During this session we will hear from leading academics in different regions of the UK about Social Innovation in their local context, and also about the ways in which we can start to collaborate with our communities to address the variety of challenges we face as a society today. This will be an online Zoom session. The panel discussion will be followed by audience questions.

REGISTER NOW: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/national-conversation-on-social-innovation-in-context-of-higher-education-tickets-317482096497