Innovation and Social Inclusion David Adams April 09

Innovation and Social Inclusion Internationally there are new approaches to social inclusion which are paralleling new approaches in innovation theory more broadly – but especially in social innovation Both approaches have a focus on: enabling conditions; a strong emphasis on governance and place; the interdependence of social economic human and natural capital and ; the important role of networks and trust

Traditional Approaches to Social Inclusion Cultural and skills change ( hard to effect at population level) Legislation ( usually a stick more than a carrot) Political activism ( works for some) Service delivery through programs (endless pilots and often low resourcing) Secondary redistribution ( eg tax/transfer system)

Organising social inclusion Group ( eg disability, indigenous etc) Population cohort ( eg youth, the elderly etc) Issue ( eg mental health; homelessness) Enabler/disabler ( eg transport; skills) Place ( eg poverty postcodes; ) Causation ( eg pathological; structural) Traditionally seen as a ‘welfare’ issue but increasingly understood as a broader civic and economic issue

Structural Cracks Separation of economy from society ( and the environment) Planning failures ( land use and urban planning in particular) Over reliance on market ‘trickle down’ mechanisms Slow dismantling of the welfare state Fragmented governance Promise of the social sciences unfulfilled

Consequences Old forms of exclusion just won’t go away New forms emerging ( eg digital / water / energy) And being compounded by the persistent ‘failure of market failure’ But much better knowledge about the geography of exclusion and solutions

New Types of Place Exclusion Wealth belt localities ( eg Sandy Bay; Norwood; Rosevears) Gentrifying / population change advantaged localities ( eg Bridport, Port Sorrell) Battling family/ mortgage stress disadvantaged localities ( eg Shoreline; Brighton) Middle class suburbia ( eg Mt Stuart; Riverside) Battler - disadvantaged ( Bridgewater; Ravenswood) Old economy extremely disadvantaged ( Scottsdale; Newnham; Moonah) Peri-urban/bush disadvantaged ( eg Bagdad; Lefroy)

New Geographies of Exclusion Driven by….. Transformation in the division of labour ( eg part time/ knowledge workers) Globalisation of markets and production (eg nomadic capital) Unbundling of value chains ( thinking separated from doing) Demographic change ( eg older, footloose gen x and y) Liveability choices ( eg sea change/tree change)

Consequences Economic resilience has a postcode Place volatility Constrained adaptability for excluded communities Unable to leverage network or agglomeration synergies This is likely to create new layers of exclusion and new places of exclusion – this is the most important new issue in social inclusion

Structural Solutions Primary need for innovation is around the local governance of complexity with a focus on new forms of primary redistribution of opportunity and wealth. For governments this means a focus on 5 policy platforms: Economic development Infrastructure and technology ( eg high speed broadband) Knowledge Governance Liveability and population settlement

Economic Solutions Economic innovation policy should focus on those potential high value industries that can leverage both competitive advantage and constructed advantage Governments can then forecast future population settlement patterns and plan for associated human and social infrastructure….with a social inclusion objective

Asset Based Strategies Shift from needs to assets and capability – of people, networks and institutions Build reservoir of social capital Orientation to local governance Utilisation of planning instruments Promotion of distributed leadership Expansion of community enterprise to the mainstream Place management of complexity

Community Enterprises Commercial operations Community ownership Primarily social objectives Profits returned into community (multiplier effect)

Theory Stuff Essentially involved reconfiguring the institutional boundaries between the economy, government, society and the earth The reconfiguration is underway through the idea of ‘sustainability’ which is about realignment with the earth Social inclusion is the idea capturing the realignment with society and community

A search for theory Social capital Local governance Regional development ‘New Economics’ and innovation Entrepreneurship and leadership Networks Communitarianism ‘New institutionalism’

Revaluing community as a social agent Communities have value because they can cause things to happen Communities of location/interest make people proud and co-operative. They are places to: –make friends = fun and security –forge identity = sort out values –make sense of things = judge what’s right –get access to resources –Creativity and imagination = precondition of innovation

Innovation Synergies Governments’ role is to build enabling policy platforms ( constructed advantage) These platforms need to be integrated Governance is central not consequential Networks matter for trust, for knowledge flows for agglomeration opportunities Creativity and population settlement matters Innovation does have a postcode – place has economic and social agency The ‘state’ is active again