Contemporary societies are facing new economic problems and societal challenges, which are namely crystallized in urban contexts characterized by social exclusion. This demands to rethink and restructure the neoliberalism development paradigm and readapt the capitalist discourse to embody the increasing awareness of the need for change, including for an inclusive urban regeneration. Market-oriented innovation no longer can be perceived as a long-term solution and therefore other approaches to innovation, such as social innovation, emerge. Social innovation is a complex process that seeks to solve social problems, generating new ideas, products or processes that meet social needs. Despite the current relevance of the social innovation concept, resulting from the fact that contemporary societies face unprecedented problems that endanger their economy and social model, there is a question that remains – how can decision/policymakers can use the social innovation paradigm and concept for an inclusive urban regeneration in order to be able to solve social and societal challenges and at the same time depopulate the economy and business opportunities?
Taking this premise into account, the URBiNAT project is imbibed on social innovation, as it has at its core to meet social needs in a socially including way, which also directly involves, and is even more determined by the people who have those needs in cooperation with other relevant stakeholders. That being said, and considering the need to identify the problem-solving mechanisms for the social problems and the social innovation as a tool to overcome the challenges and the possibility of creating business opportunities, proposals are expected to discuss the opportunities that emerge from social innovation in order to solve social and societal problems, namely in the context of urban regeneration. In short, this session welcomes contributions examining and casting light on ways for decision/policymakers to help breed social innovation in support of inclusive urban regeneration, as a means to address outstanding social and societal challenges. Analysis identifying hurdles and impediments to social innovation, while also examining how they can be overcome, are of high interest. Both theoretical and empirical studies will be included.
In recent years, various forms of science-society articulation have become widespread. Academic entrepreneurship is one such mechanism. It refers to the creation of enterprises based on knowledge generated at the university. The role of the University and other scientific research entities was then reconsidered in the knowledge society, as centres for producing knowledge and innovation. Many entrepreneurial initiatives aim to generate responses to social needs, being directly linked to the generation of social innovations. Concerning this social value produced by academic entrepreneurship, it is associated with the resolution of societal challenges. From a Schumpeterian perspective, academic entrepreneurship can be analysed as the generation of value through social innovation. Social innovation refers to the development and/or implementation of new ideas to meet explicit or latent social challenges and needs using shared and co-produced knowledge that is innovative both in its ends and in its means.
Portugal was not far from this trend, but the topic still needs investigation. Based on contributions from S&T Social Studies and Economic Sociology on entrepreneurship and innovation, this communication aims to analyse the link between academic entrepreneurship and social innovation. This connection will be analysed within the framework of the concept of academic entrepreneurship as a “practice carried out with the intention of transferring knowledge between universities (...) and the external environment, in order to produce economic and social value” (Cantaragiu, 2012, p. 687) and, on the other hand, social innovation as the development and/or implementation of new ideas to meet explicit or latent social challenges and needs, and this innovation can favour social well-being, growth and economic performance. That being said, entrepreneurial activity is examined as a vital element for societies, because entrepreneurs (in this case academic entrepreneurs) introduce innovations in the system that will most likely contribute to social, economic and financial development, while developing, a triple relationship between university, industry and governance, thus promoting the dissemination of social innovations that will culminate in benefits for society.
This communication arises from the preliminary results of the state of the art of doctoral thesis: Academic Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation: An Economic Sociology Approach to Entrepreneurial Contexts, Ecosystems and Dynamics in Portugal. The communication seeks to contribute to the debate on the existence of different responses to the challenges and needs (academic entrepreneurship) that influence the generation and diffusion of social innovations. In short, the study aims to highlight academic entrepreneurship as a driving force of social innovation.
The proliferating sustainable development challenges of urban areas require a societal mindset change. Innovative approaches for urban transformation and regeneration, combining nature-based solutions with society-based solutions are essential, to make our cities thrive and prosper. Open innovation and entrepreneurial approaches, typically designed to serve economic and corporate ambitions, can be adopted and reconfigured for driving urban communities towards sustainable and inclusive growth.
Recognising the increasing awareness for the need of mindset shift, as well as the importance of urban regeneration, U-SOLVE – an empirical project supported by the ENI CBCMED Programme – seeks to stimulate cities and their stakeholders to co-create a future that is sustainable for people and the environment, based on circularity and redistribution of resources. U-SOLVE is experimenting an innovative process, which is based on the principles of the ‘Doughnut Economics’ (Raworth, 2017), promoting social development under the ceiling of the planetary ecological limits. Quintuple helix co-creation processes are activated to boost the implementation of SDGs in urban contexts of the Mediterranean region, seeking for the appropriate orientation of innovative technologies and business models arising from creative sectors, towards priorities expressed by local actors through a participatory process.
Implementing the initial activities of U-SOLVE has accelerated our learning curve about the effective development of sustainable urban communities. Main barriers are the lack of an all-inclusive, transparent interaction and experimentation of urban actors during policy and decision-making processes as well as the appropriate mindset and culture for solving complex sustainable development challenges. It has become evident that policy-making procedures might exclude local society; however, society might be also lacking interest in the present configuration of open participatory processes. Mobilising the creative and cultural industry, through a lean and transparent dialogue, can significantly enhance the collective engagement towards urban sustainable transitions.
Empirical realisations showed that activating a community’s wide-ranging interest is a complex task; accepting and adapting to changes takes time; fostering imagination and sense of ownership can help build stronger communities; and conceiving with a long-term horizon in mind rather than expecting immediate outcomes is key. Further, it resulted that the sustainable transition of cities requires a creative effort around existing areas and settlements, rather than the further promotion of urban sprawl as a shortcut to move away from the wicked urban problems.
Human capital emerges as the critical asset for thriving communities. The creative sector can generate solutions that influence behaviours, meet social needs and encourage the success of interventions for urban sustainable development. Activating the creative industry (at the crossroads of the arts, culture, business and technology) can trigger imagination and breed urban cultures, fostering socio-technical systems towards more sustainable and equitable models.
In closing, cities can become more sustainable and inclusive through the creative use of existing resources, if appropriate cultural schemes would emerge. Creative and cultural business opportunities and solutions may have the power to support this process – by triggering imagination, influencing behaviours, and engaging the wider population.
Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut Economics: Seven ways to think like a 21st century economist. Chelsea Green Publishing.
Urban regeneration practices make up current urban development and are often carried out through public-private partnerships (PPPs). These practices have several characteristics resulting from their unique nature in urban, social, economic and environmental terms. From the social point of view, one of the main characteristics is the wide range of stakeholders involved.
These stakeholders can be of public or private nature, organized in groups or acting individually, and belong to different hierarchical levels of power. Among the main actors, there are the public sector through its different levels of government; the private sector represented by companies, entrepreneurs, foreign capital, real estate agents; the local community and citizens, with emphasis on residents and merchants; independent agencies; and non-profit organizations.
Despite the great importance of all stakeholders involved in PPP processes in urban regeneration projects, the strong role of local actors is observed, especially regarding the local public authorities and the local community/citizens. The strong presence of local actors in PPP processes in urban regeneration can be understood within the concept of local governance. In this sense, the present paper approaches the idea of local governance in PPP processes in urban regeneration, trying to analyze the different roles of local actors and seeking to understand how each group of actors acts in different urban, social and institutional contexts.
The results point to different contexts in which local governance is applied and to situations in which local forces act to support the intervention to be carried out and situations in which local forces act as resistance to specific interventions. It is also possible to observe that the ability to influence the urban regeneration practices of these actors depends on their organizational capacity.
Lee, J.-W., Sung, J.-S. (2017). Conflicts of interest and change in original intent: A case study of vacant and abandoned homes repurposed as community gardens in a Shrinking City, Daegu, South Korea. Sustainability (Switzerland), 9 (11), art. no. 2140.
Jones, M.T. (2019). Framing regeneration: Embracing the inhabitants. Urban Studies, 56 (9), pp. 1901-1917.
Hodkinson, S. (2011). Housing Regeneration and the Private Finance Initiative in England: Unstitching the Neoliberal Urban Straitjacket. Antipode, 43 (2), pp. 358-383.
Carmon, N. (1998). Immigrants as carriers of urban regeneration: international evidence and an Israeli case study. International Planning Studies, 3 (2), pp. 207-225.
Norris, M., Hearne, R. (2016). Privatizing public housing redevelopment: Grassroots resistance, co-operation and devastation in three Dublin neighbourhoods. Cities, 57, pp. 40-46.
Fanelli, S., Lanza, G. (2017). A local authority governance model: the case of Parma and ‘MasterTown’. International Review of Public Administration, 22 (1), pp. 1-13.
Bailey, N. (1997). Changing institutional responses to the regeneration of peripheral industrial locations in London: an evaluation of partnership and local capacity building. Planning Practice and Research, 12 (3), pp. 263-276.
Guarneros-Meza, V. (2008). Local governance in Mexico: The cases of two historic-centre partnerships. Urban Studies, 45 (5-6), pp. 1011-1035.
Guarneros-Meza, V. (2009). Mexican urban governance: How old and new institutions coexist and interact. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 33 (2), pp. 463-482.
The use of nature-based solutions (NBS) to enhance urban resilience is gaining prominence in both academic research and the urban planning domain, as they hold proclaimed co-benefits for the environment, society, and economy (European Commission, 2020; Faivre et al., 2017; Kabisch et al., 2016). However, empirical research shows that the consideration for social benefits such as equity and social inclusivity is often lacking in urban NBS design and implementation processes. This lack of attention often enhances processes of green gentrification (Haase, 2017; Haase et al., 2017; Rutt & Gulsrud, 2016; Tozer et al., 2020, Kotsila et al., 2021). At the same time, co-creation processes are increasingly being promoted and used by researchers, public actors and urban planners as an approach that can include a diversity of local stakeholders in the creation of urban NBS (Lupp et al., 2021; Raymond et al., 2017; Zingraff-Hamed et al., 2020). However, literature on co-creation shows an implementation gap between the intended diverse representation of stakeholders and deeper levels of participation through a co-creation process and the challenges of meeting these goals in practice (Leino & Puumala, 2020). This implementation gap is partly due to the lack of a framework for co-creation that incorporates issues of social inclusivity. To contribute to insights on how to make the co-creation of NBS more socially inclusive, this paper develops a novel design-oriented framework based on a synthesis of existing scholarly insights from NBS, urban planning and co-creation literature, and through empirical validation.
The conceptualization of a co-creation process by DeLosRíos-White et al. (2020), including iterative co-explore, co-design, co-experiment, co-evaluate and co-management phases, is used as the backbone for the framework. This literature-derived framework has been empirically validated through two case studies from the EU-CLEVERCITIES project and two focus groups with leading experts on NBS implementation and co-creation. The validated framework consists, amongst other elements, of five general and fourteen stage-specific guiding principles for the socially inclusive co-creation of urban NBS. Additionally, the framework includes five pre-process inputs that have been found to provide a conducive context for socially inclusive co-creation processes. The validated framework highlights the importance of collectively understanding and defining the local problem(s) together with local citizens as the starting point for the co-creative process. Only through this first step, there can be an opportunity for NBS to be reflexively tailored into a potential solution and offer greater social value. In addition, the process should be accessible to diverse social groups through tailored engagement tools, target-group-specific language, and involving social group representatives as mediators. Moreover, the co-design of the NBS should carefully consider long-term implications for social inclusivity, for instance, the spatial effects, financing mechanisms, and long-term governance arrangements. We find based on the results that the validated framework holds two purposes, as a design-oriented tool, and as an evaluation tool. The framework can be used to help practitioners develop future urban NBS co-creation processes that centre around issues of social inclusivity and contribute to a fairer and greener city.