Design for Social Innovation Research Network: Bridging the UK and Asia-Pacific Practices

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The aims of the proposal is to create and establish an international research network on an emerging and relatively undocumented field of Design for Social Innovation by creating a platform for knowledge sharing between researchers and practitioners in the UK and Asia-Pacific region. The term 'Social Innovation' has become widely used, actively promoted by governments, organisations, academia and businesses alike. According to the Design for Social Innovation Report published by the European Commission (2014, pg 2), they state; "Social innovation is the concept of developing new - often disruptive solutions that work towards meeting social goals." Arguably, communities and organisations have always tackled problems and effected change for the social and public good. However, in the last ten years, we have witnessed a growing interest and use of design to enable social innovation due to the on-going financial crisis in the UK, Europe and the US. Design is seen as a way to harness latent creativity and participation from various stakeholders' local, situated knowledge. With a rich history of socially focused initiatives and current political idea of the 'Big Society', UK has a leading number of practitioners and researchers currently operating in this field. The strong economic development in Asia in the last 15 years has increased the West's interest in the region. A recent report from the Australian Government Trade Commission report (AUSTRADE, 2015) suggests that the ASEAN 5's (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam) GDP growth will far outstrip the Euro zone. Furthermore, Australia is entering its 24th year of uninterrupted economic growth, with GDP projection higher than the US, UK or Europe. However, even prosperous economies like Australia, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong are facing challenges to balance sustainable economic development with social and political changes. There are now strong signs that the interest in using design to facilitate social change is growing in Asia-Pacific by the increasing number of social innovation labs being established in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Korea.Our proposal aims to connect UK researchers with current practices in Asia-Pacific, leveraging the experience and knowledge of leading researchers in the UK to inform practices in Asia-Pacific, while at the same time using examples from Asia-Pacific to enrich and inform the understanding of Design for Social Innovation in the UK. As such, there will be three key activities in Thailand and the UK that will bring together this dispersed community of practice. A public symposium bringing together examples from the Asia-Pacific region will be held in Bangkok, followed by a workshop aimed at identifying issues, themes and opportunities for further research. The outcomes from the Bangkok symposium and workshop will be shared as points of discussion with participants in the UK and to shape the practitioner workshop that will be used to inform practices and identify research opportunities in the UK. The interactions between the participants and presentations given will be made available to the wider community through a dedicated community-led project website. The community platform will house various resources created from the proposed events, and links to various social innovators, social enterprises, funding bodies, NGOs, project initiatives, research networks, governmental bodies and companies in Design and Social Innovation. It will also become a repository for academic research and publications relevant to the field, and house project notices that may arise in the future. The platform will enable us to not only enable the continued dissemination of the research outcomes but to facilitate continued dialogue between the communities.