Changemakers

This special issue of the Social Innovation Journal examines the trends that support social innovation, their implications for practice, and the ways in which paradigms for changemaking can accommodate knowledge systems.

The Social Innovations Journal (SIJ) is focused to social innovators and entrepreneurs who operate at the interface between the nonprofit, public, and private sectors and combines them in pursuit of common social impact objectives and governmental policy. SIJ documents social innovations and businesses tackling the most difficult problems in leadership, systems, human capital, and social policy. The Journal connects academic research with practical experience through partnerships with government, philanthropy, not-for-profits, and universities. 

This special issue powered by Ashoka examines the cultural and geopolitical trends that support social innovation, their implications for practice, and the ways in which paradigms for changemaking can accommodate knowledge systems within the context of past experiences with colonization, imperial dominance, oppression, protracted conflict, and the environmental crisis. For social innovation and changemaking initiatives to be effective, the authors of this edition remark that we must take into account these varied knowledge systems and confront asymmetrical power dynamics. 

The articles in this issue recognize education on social innovation and changemaking as something crucial to for our society. Moreover, the majority of these topics were researched in response to Ashoka U’s Third Annual Changemaker Education Research Forum (CERF) held in September 2022. Other matters covered in this issue are:

  • International Development
  • Local vs. Global
  • Responsible Knowledge Creation and Management
  • Changemaking in, through, and for Higher Education

You can read this special issue powered by Ashoka U: Identifying and Addressing Cultural, Geopolitical, Structural, and Educational Barriers to Social Innovation here.