Partnering for rural sustainability: Building collaborations across the third sector in scaling social innovations

• In Event: Evaluating social enterprise and social innovation

Abstract

Urban encroachment and the blurring of urban/rural lines have contributed to the decline in ecosystems and their resources in peri-urban areas (MEA 2005). This is occurring globally, driven partly by the capitalisation and commercialisation of food production (Wästfelt & Zhang 2016) or the belief that rapid urbanisation is the solution to endemic rural poverty (Kestemont et al. 2011). Social innovation, championed by change makers, who can contribute to sustaining long term engagement and responsible management of rural areas are much needed to provide sustainable futures. The local embeddedness of these actions, however, often make scaling such initiatives challenging, limiting their reach and impact (Buchegger & Ornetzeder 2000, Seyfang 2009, Vickers 2010).

Drawing on the social innovation literature and discussions regarding NGO capacity building and empowerment, the relationships between universities and NGOs within the generation and dissemination community-based rural revitalisation will be explored. In particular, how different university-NGO partnerships can expand their capacity in effecting and scaling sustained environmental and social change at the peri-urban interface.

NGOs can play a pivotal role in cultivating social innovations, but they need the appropriate tools and resources, often struggling to make an impact beyond their locality. Conventionally, within the quintuple helix model, universities’ roles are limited to knowledge purveyors and only recently has the third sector been recognised as part of the social innovation process. We argue that universities can partner with NGOs to equip them with the appropriate resources, networks and structures, and through this process, aid the scaling of rural revitalisation initiatives. By collaborating with NGOs working with the community for rural sustainability, universities can empower NGOs who can then sustain a relationship with, and incubate change makers/social enterprises for rural sustainability, replicating and translating social innovations beyond the original partnership.

In this study, we compare two novel NGO/university collaborative partnerships for rural revitalisation initiatives. These are juxtaposed with the more conventional university-NGO collaboration for community-based action. The first novel case features an incubation-based approach, whereby the university acts as a social innovation incubator to a small NGO while collaborating to develop programmes to nurture rural sustainability actions, thus growing the sustainability impact and capacity of the NGO. In the next case, the university directly incubates the formation of innovative social enterprises (SE) and cross-sector collaborations to generate, replicate and translate social innovations to address rural issues.

By comparing the outcomes of these three programmes through questionnaire data, interviews and observation records, this study demonstrates the different ways that universities can partner and collaborate with the third sector in the sustained engagement, creation and dissemination of social innovations to address rural issues. Contributions are also made to understandings regarding the social innovation process through demonstrating how NGO/SE can be developed, and empowered, through NGO/university partnerships for rural sustainability. Equally, universities can better embrace their social missions through extending their roles within the social innovation ecosystem, aiding the better allocation of resources within their communities, and in this way provide a complementary and empowering role towards the third sector and society in general.

References

Buchegger, B. and Ornetzeder, M., 2000, May. Social innovations on the way to sustainable development. In ESEE Conference Proceeding, Vienna.
Kestemont, B., Frendo, L. & Zaccai, E. (2011). Indicators of the impacts of development on environment: A comparison of Africa and Europe. Ecological indicators, 11, 848-856.
Millennium ecosystem assessment, M.E.A., 2005. Ecosystems and human well-being (Vol. 5, p. 563). Washington, DC: Island press.
Seyfang, G. (2009) The New Economics of Sustainable Consumption: Seeds of change. Palgrave Macmillan, Baskingstoke.
Vickers, I., 2010. Social enterprise and the environment: a review of the literature. Third Sector Research Centre Working Paper, 22.
Wästfelt, A. and Zhang, Q., 2016. Reclaiming localisation for revitalising agriculture: A case study of peri-urban agricultural change in Gothenburg, Sweden. Journal of Rural Studies, 47, pp.172-185.

Authors

• Vivian H.Y. Chu, Centre for Civil Society and Governance, the University of Hong Kong

• Wai-Fung LAM, Centre for Civil Society and Governance, the University of Hong Kong

• Winnie W Y Law, Centre for Civil Society and Governance, the University of Hong Kong

• Jessica Williams, Centre for Civil Society and Governance, the University of Hong Kong