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

该提案的目的是通过创建一个英国和亚太地区研究人员和实践者之间的知识共享平台，在一个新兴的和相对无文献的社会创新设计领域创建和建立一个国际研究网络。“社会创新”一词已被广泛使用，并得到政府、组织、学术界和企业的积极推动。根据欧盟委员会发布的《社会创新设计报告》（2014年，第2页），他们指出：“社会创新是开发新的、通常是破坏性的解决方案的概念，这些解决方案致力于实现社会目标。“可以说，社区和组织一直在解决问题，并为社会和公共利益进行变革。然而，在过去的十年里，由于英国、欧洲和美国持续的金融危机，我们目睹了对设计的兴趣和使用越来越多，以实现社会创新。设计被视为一种利用潜在的创造力和参与各种利益相关者的地方，现场知识的方式。英国有着丰富的以社会为重点的倡议历史和“大社会”的当前政治理念，目前在这一领域拥有领先的从业者和研究人员。过去15年来亚洲经济的强劲发展增加了西方对该地区的兴趣。澳大利亚政府贸易委员会最近的一份报告（AUSTRADE，2015）表明，东盟5国（印度尼西亚，马来西亚，菲律宾，泰国，越南）的GDP增长将远远超过欧元区。此外，澳大利亚正进入其经济持续增长的第24个年头，GDP预测高于美国、英国或欧洲。然而，即使是澳大利亚、日本、新加坡和香港等繁荣经济体也面临着在可持续经济发展与社会和政治变革之间取得平衡的挑战。目前有明显的迹象表明，亚太地区对利用设计促进社会变革的兴趣正在增长，越来越多的社会创新实验室正在香港、新加坡、日本和韩国建立。我们的建议旨在将英国研究人员与亚太地区的现行做法联系起来，利用英国领先研究人员的经验和知识，为亚太地区的实践提供信息，同时利用亚太地区的例子来丰富和告知英国对社会创新设计的理解。因此，在泰国和联合王国将有三项关键活动，将这一分散的实践社区聚集在一起。将在曼谷举行一次公开专题讨论会，汇集亚太区域的实例，随后将举办一次讲习班，以确定进一步研究的问题、主题和机会。曼谷研讨会和讲习班的成果将作为讨论要点与英国的参与者分享，并形成从业者讲习班，用于为英国的实践提供信息并确定研究机会。 参与者之间的互动和所作的介绍将通过一个专门的社区主导的项目网站向更广泛的社区提供。社区平台将容纳从拟议活动中创建的各种资源，并链接到各种社会创新者，社会企业，资助机构，非政府组织，项目倡议，研究网络，政府机构和设计和社会创新公司。它还将成为与该领域有关的学术研究和出版物的存放处，并存放未来可能出现的项目通知。该平台将使我们不仅能够继续传播研究成果，而且能够促进社区之间的持续对话。

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.