Sustainable development policies traditionally promote both innovation and community action - but within separate policy spheres. This proposal bridges that divide to examine the unresearched area of community action as a source of innovative ideas and practices. It examines a diverse global movement of ‘grassroots innovations’ in the form of ‘complementary currencies’ to assess their characteristics and diffusion strategies. It relates these findings to larger debates on innovation and sustainable development, promoting mutual learning between theories of innovation in the market and social economies. Findings will help policymakers harness the innovative potential of ‘grassroots innovations’ for sustainable development.

Research Summary

Sustainable development policies for technological and behavioural change focus on innovation, and community action, but within separate policy spheres. Innovation is usually framed as business-led, market-based technological change, and innovation research aims to support the successful exploitation of new business ideas. Alternatively, community-led ‘grassroots’ action for sustainability relates to behaviour change initiatives, often within the ‘social economy’ of voluntary organisations and social enterprise, viewed as spaces for public engagement in sustainability. Little is known about the conditions required to develop, sustain and diffuse these activities - either by replicating existing small-scale initiatives, by scaling up, or by translating ideas and practices into mainstream settings.

Preliminary work by the applicant has argued that the conceptual and policy divide between innovation and community action inhibits our understanding of the initiatives and processes involved innovative potential of grassroots initiatives to seed wider change, and therefore the achievement of innovation and of and sustainable development policy goals. For instance, community-led social innovations such as furniture recycling schemes or local food groups often remain small-scale and fail to grow because of a lack of institutional support and long-term funds, whereas technological innovations have an established infrastructure of policy support. Additionally, green values in grassroots niches can conflict with mainstream settings, inhibiting transfer of ideas and practices. This proposal bridges that divide to examine the unresearched area of community action as a source of innovative ideas and practices, here termed ‘grassroots innovation’.

Objectives

This research aims to improve understanding of, and thereby increase the rate and diffusion of innovation for sustainability at the grassroots (comprising community-based activities, often in the social economy). This is a neglected area of research and policy, and the subject of a newly-emerging research agenda around ‘grassroots innovations’. The research will test the applicability of existing theory of niche sustainable innovations in this new setting, and develop new theory where necessary. It will deliver policy recommendations to support these activities, and so help unlock the assets of communities to deliver improvements in economic, social and environmental sustainability. The objectives are:

1.To examine the diversity and characteristics of ‘complementary currencies’ in contemporary practice. These are community-led initiatives which meet economic, social and/or environmental needs;

2.To conceptualise these ‘grassroots innovations’ as ‘niches’ where new social infrastructure may be tested, and investigate the range of contextual factors which contribute to the emergence, success or failure of these innovations, and their diffusion into wider society;

3.To relate these findings to wider debates on sustainable innovations and transition management, sustainable development and the social economy, so as to:

a.Operationalise and empirically test the theory of ‘grassroots innovations’ for sustainability;

b.Develop this theory to improve understanding of the distinctiveness of community-led innovation for sustainability, its role and potential;

c.Identify the contextual factors determining grassroots innovative capacity and processes, and suggest ways of increasing the rate of innovation and its diffusion into wider society

Significance and Originality

This project develops an emerging research agenda by integrating innovation and community action, two previously un-linked areas of research, and viewing the grassroots as a site of innovative activity. The ‘transitions management’ literature describes the important role of innovative niches in seeding transitions in wider social and economic systems, but is rooted in analysis of commercial (often technological) activities in the market economy. This theory will be applied to community-led initiatives. Synergies and tensions will be explored between the traditional innovation literature and this new social economy context, and the scope for mutual learning will be examined.

These theoretical developments will be applied through the first international study of ‘complementary currencies’ (CCs), local community-led exchange systems which exist alongside mainstream money. They arise for a variety of reasons, in different forms and contexts, worldwide, top address economic, social and environmental needs. However, despite their intrinsic benefits and potential, CCs have remained small and marginal. Little is known about the processes and contexts necessary for mainstreaming CCs. For the first time, CCs will be investigated as specifically innovative activities, to ask:

•what is the range of CCs in existence?

•how have CCs tried to grow and diffuse?

•what factors help or hinder CC diffusion?

•what can traditional innovation theory say about grassroots innovations?

•conversely, what is distinctive about grassroots innovations, and how can innovation theory adapt?

•what policies are needed to nurture and grow grassroots innovations for sustainability?

Contributions will be made to debates on CC research, innovation/transition management, and sustainable consumption . The research will deliver timely evidence for policymakers to help them harness the potential of GIs, and policy recommendations will be suggested, forming the basis of a framework with action points for international, national, regional and local action.

Methodology

First, a scoping review of existing CC research and practitioner literature will produce a new dataset cataloguing the breadth and diversity of global CCs, drawing on the applicant’s extensive international contacts. Analysis of the dataset will yield a new conceptual typology of CCs based on CC objectives, mechanisms, institutional form, social context, geography, and socio-technical innovativeness.

Second, approximately 12 exemplar CCs will be selected from the dataset, displaying maximum variations in these key characteristics. Further qualitative research with these exemplars will investigate their innovation-diffusion strategies (how they approach replication, scaling up, and translating ideas to mainstream settings). It will assess success, barriers, and factors which best support widespread diffusion, such as linking with local institutions, or using familiar technologies. This will comprise semi-structured interviews with 2-3 key informants for each of the exemplar CCs (leaders, networks, institutional partners), using telephone and email contact, video-conferencing and online discussions, as appropriate. Translators will facilitate contact with non-English speakers. A model of CC diffusion will be developed, linking contextual factors with innovative-ness.

Third, theoretical work will review the literature on diffusing niche socio-technical innovations and identify lessons for CCs in particular and GIs in general by highlighting ‘innovation gaps’ preventing successful diffusion of GIs. It will investigate how the characteristics of grassroots innovation differ from those assumed in the innovation literature, and identify what is new about GIs, and the implications for theory, policy and practice. Mutual learning will be sought between these two innovative contexts to develop innovation theory into this new area.