Defining social innovation for post-secondary educational institutions: a concept analysis

Post-secondary educational institutions (PSEIs) have three missions: education, research, and contribution to society through innovation. There is a gap in conceptual clarity for social innovation (SI) within PSEIs. A clear definition would guide institutional strategy and supports, recognize and reward academic SI research, and enable accurate outcome and impact measurement. Using Walker and Avant’s concept analysis method, the authors reviewed the literature, extracting antecedents, defining attributes, and consequences of SI from 272 eligible articles, and reconstructed these elements to propose a new definition. For PSEIs, SI is defined as the intentional implementation of a transdisciplinary initiative to address a social challenge enabled through collaborative action leading to new or improved capabilities and relationships with community to generate evidence-informed solutions that are more effective, efficient, just, and sustainable. Greater definitional clarity enables PSEIs to plan strategically, allocate resources to fulfill their Third Mission, and develop measurement frameworks to demonstrate SI outcomes and impact.

K. M. Benzies, D. B. Nicholas, K. A. Hayden, T. Barnas, A. de Koning, A. Bharwani, J. Armstrong, J. Day