Social Innovation in Urban and Regional Development

“People are not even aware that they are doing something socially innovative.” This statement is a recurring theme when dealing with social innovation (SI) in the academic and policymaking context. Although there is a significant body of literature on social innovation and interdisciplinary research programmes have gained a visible impact1 over time, there seems to be a gap between debating and doing social innovation. Catchwords such as scalability, institutionalization, the third sector and bottom-up practices illustrate the range of interest in SI, while self-organized citizens and grass-roots organisations apply counteracting mechanisms in their daily practices.