This presentation will focus on social innovations in differing contexts, such as fair trade, community waste, social franchising, and co-operative banking, schools and social care. Participants will walk away with insight regarding the significance of particular types of intermediaries and federated structures as means of expanding (and defending) these systems.

Robin Murray is an economist whose work has recently focused on co-operative development and social innovation.  He was author of ‘Co-operation in the Age of Google’ a report on strategy for Co-operatives UK (the umbrella body for co-operatives in Britain), a co-author of ‘The Open Book of Social Innovation’ and is currently working on a text on Co-operative Accumulation.  He is a Fellow of the Young Foundation, for whom he co-authored two books on social innovation, and is also a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics.

 

This webinar will continue the discussion from BALTA’s recent webinar with Pat Conaty, which focused on how innovations develop and spread within the social economy.

 

Robin prefers not to use the word ‘scale’ because of its association with mass production, and finds it more helpful to think in terms of generative diffusion and the gradual development and strengthening of alternative systems.  Pat discussed this process in the case of community land trusts, community finance, and local energy projects.

 

Robin will look at differing experiences in such fields as fair trade, community waste, social franchising, and co-operative banking, schools and social care. They suggest the significance of particular types of intermediaries and federated structures as means of expanding (and defending) these systems.