About UBC’s Social Innovation Hub
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every aspect of life in Canada and around the globe, from individual relationships to institutional operations to international supply chains and collaborations. The global pandemic also unearthed the interconnectedness and vulnerability of the complex systems. Social innovation, social entrepreneurship, social enterprise, social financing, and social business are viewed as some of the innovative solutions and mechanisms to address systemic, operational, and strategic challenges that arise in the post-pandemic world. The Social Innovation Hub emphasizes the multi-stakeholder model in designing and cultivating high-impact social innovations, social enterprises, and social business, educating the next generation of social innovators and social entrepreneurs, and developing long-term collaborations with key partners and communities within and beyond the Okanagan region.
The Social Innovation Hub will include three pillars of activities:
Social Innovation Research Network – the Hub facilitates a diverse set of research projects and research partnerships as well as establish an international social innovation research network to connect Canadian scholars with international collaborators and partners
Social Innovation Learning – the Hub coordinates courses and work-integrated learning (WIL) programs, and other experiential learning activities to engage educators, learners, and community partners at all levels to develop a better understanding of social innovation
Social Innovation Incubator – the Hub leverages e@UBCO’s programs to develop a “humanitarian-centric” social innovation incubator. The new incubation program will support the development of social businesses, social enterprises, indigenous social ventures, and other socially driven enterprises.
The Social Innovation Hub works closely with the University administration and many other interdisciplinary institutes such as the Institute for Community Engaged Research (ICER), the Institute for Healthy Living and Chronic Disease Prevention (IHLCDP), and UBC STAR (UBC Survive and Thrive Applied Research initiative), research clusters such as the Rural Health Equity through Social Enterprise and Technology Synergy (RHE-SETS) research cluster, the Kelowna Homeless research cluster, and the Blockchain@UBC research community as well as innovation incubators such as Entrepreneurship@UBCO (e@UBCO) to develop an integrated research and innovation network to engage communities, multi-disciplinary researchers, business partners, change leaders, and citizens.
The Social Innovation Hub also connects with partnering universities of the Yunus Social Business Centre (https://www.yunussb.com/) and the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability (DESIS) network (https://www.desisnetwork.org/) to maximize the impact of our research, social ventures, and innovations.