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Introduction to the conference The idea and its implementation Josef Hochgerner Centre for Social Innovation, Vienna Slide 2 Thank you: Welcome, speakers and supporting organisations -European Commission / NET4SOCIETY -Austrian Ministry for Science and Research (BMWF) -Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) -City of Vienna (Stadt Wien) -University of Technology, Dortmund (TUDO) 370 Participants from 54 countries of all continents Organisers -ZSI, Zentrum fr Soziale Innovation Centre for Social Innovation -sfs, Sozialforschungsstelle Central Scientific Institute of TUDO -NET4SOCIETY, Network of National Contact Points for Socio- economic Sciences and Humanities (SSH) -The Steering Committee, Chairs, Speakers, and Hallamasch Slide 3 The idea of this conference Expectations in social innovations seem to increase boundless At the same time scientific comprehension and methods of identification, development and measuring the impact of social innovations still fall short to meet such prospect In general, innovation requires sound scientific foundations more than ever in the globalised knowledge society of the 21st century In order to improve adequate scientific concepts and methodologies concerning social innovations in a wide array of societal challenges, our aim was to assemble the leading brains in social innovation The core objective is to strengthen social sciences and research pertaining to social innovation, focusing on the provision of knowledge applicable to change social practices i.e. to generate social innovation CSI-2011 shall establish research topics, research networks, and a firm concept of social innovation, leading to equal footing of social innovation compared to the prevalent notion of innovation in the corporate sector Slide 4 Why CSI Vienna ? Preceding ICICI conferences since 2008 Social innovation in Austria The welfare state Innovation centres and business parks in the 1980s The Centre for Social Innovation, 1990 The annual Social Innovation Award SozialMarie since 2005 www.sozialmarie.orgwww.sozialmarie.org Cultural and scientific heritage: Vienna and Joseph A. Schumpeter (1883-1950) Slide 5 Schumpeter adopts social innovation... a video combining facts and fiction: Some key quotations from what Schumpeter wrote about innovation, starting 1911, and assumptions of what he might tell us now, aged 128, on social innovation.