Cases of Societal Innovation

Abstract

More and more people acknowledge that innovation is the engine of economic growth, prosperity, and the foundation of the well-being in a society. The major problems we face today, such as healthcare, unemployment, economic crises, and an aging population are better addressed from a social sciences perspective. In this chapter, four societal innovation cases are introduced. They derive from four UNESCO nominated creative cities, namely, Kanazawa in Japan (year awarded 2009), Lyon in France (2008), Ostersund in Sweden (2010), and Norwich in the United Kingdom (2012). The rationale of selecting these four cases is that they meet the six criteria of societal innovation, namely systemic change, structural change, stakeholders’ involvement, acceptance by the citizens and government, successful systems interdependency, and having desirable outcomes and impacts.