Un groupe de travail ouvert pour caractériser l'innovation sociale

De nombreuses entreprises sociales sont engagées dans des démarches d’innovation. Pour apporter des réponses nouvelles aux besoins sociaux, elles prennent des risques, mènent des activités de R&D, s’entourent d’experts et de chercheurs, expérimentent.
Cependant, elles rencontrent des difficultés pour financer et accompagner leurs innovations. D’un côté, les financeurs traditionnels de l’ESS fonctionnent selon des mécanismes peu adaptés à la prise en charge du risque lié à l’innovation, et n’ont parfois pas la taille critique nécessaire à la mobilisation des capitaux importants que requièrent certaines innovations sociales. De l’autre, les financeurs classiques de l’innovation, aujourd’hui massivement focalisés sur l’innovation technologique, ont du mal à appréhender les particularités de l’innovation sociale, telles que la rentabilité limitée, le recours aux sciences humaines, le statut associatif ou coopératif de nombreuses structures.
C’est pourquoi le Mouves s’est engagé depuis février dans l’animation d’un groupe de travail pluridisciplinaire, réunissant une vingtaine d’acteurs autour d’un objectif commun : mieux accompagner et financer l’innovation sociale, pour accélérer son développement. Cet objectif se décline en deux volets d’action : mettre en place des outils spécifiques pour accompagner et financer l’innovation sociale, mais aussi ouvrir les aides classiques à l’innovation.
Parmi les acteurs impliqués dans le groupe de travail : acteurs de l’ESS (Avise, France Active, URSCOP Languedoc-Roussillon…), acteurs de l’innovation (Centre francilien de l’innovation, Liens…), acteurs publics (Région Ile-de-France…), chercheurs (ESSEC, UPEC, Institut Godin…)
Pour convaincre l’ensemble des organismes d’aide et de financement de soutenir l’innovation sociale, encore faut-il définir, concrètement et simplement, ce qu’est un projet « socialement innovant ». C’est pourquoi la première étape de notre travail collectif a consisté à mieux caractériser l’innovation sociale : comment repérer, sélectionner, diagnostiquer, accompagner, des projets socialement innovants ?
Samedi 18 juin, les Etats généraux de l’ESS au Palais Brongniart ont été l’occasion de mettre en débat le premier résultat d’étape de ce travail : un outil simple et opérationnel, utile pour les acteurs de terrain, appropriable par le plus grand nombre d’acteurs dans et hors de l’ESS.

Accédez à la grille de critères de l'innovation sociale proposée lors de l'atelier du 18 juin 2011 aux Etats Généraux de l'ESS.
Cet outil se décline en 8 critères socles, sur lesquels l’ensemble des acteurs consultés se sont mis d’accord comme constituant le cœur de la caractérisation de l’innovation sociale, et en 12 critères complémentaires.
Cet outil de base qui pourra être personnalisé par les différents acteurs en fonction de leurs usages : choix des critères complémentaires retenus, importance relative accordée à chaque critère, choix de la méthode d’évaluation… Il vise ainsi à fournir une base commune à tous les acteurs de l’innovation sociale, tout en s’adaptant à la diversité de leurs besoins : entrepreneur souhaitant diagnostiquer son projet pour repérer des pistes d’amélioration, organisme cherchant à sélectionner des projets innovants pour les financer, incubateur proposant d’accompagner des projets dans leur développement, organisateur d’un concours souhaitant repérer des projets pour les mettre en valeur, etc.
Deux enjeux aujourd’hui :

• Tester et roder cette grille : auprès d’entrepreneurs sociaux innovants, auprès d’acteurs de l’innovation classique, et au-delà des entrepreneurs sociaux auprès d’autres acteurs engagés dans des démarches d’innovation sociale (monde associatif, entreprises classiques…).
•  S’appuyer sur cette grille pour créer ou développer des outils pertinents de financement et d’accompagnement pour l’innovation sociale ! Parmi les outils spécifiques d’aide à l’innovation sociale, France Active, membre du groupe de travail, a annoncé à l’occasion de l’atelier du 18 juin le lancement d’INNOV’ESS, un fonds de financement dédié à l’innovation sociale et doté de 2 millions d’euros pour sa première année. Parmi les outils classiques d’aide à l’innovation, le Mouves et ses partenaires s’engagent depuis plusieurs mois pour l’ouverture du Crédit d’impôt recherche et celle des aides Oséo Innovation aux projets socialement innovants.

http://www.mouves.org/pg/pages/view/2216/

Islam Analysis: Technology's missing link

Athar Osama  |  12 octobre 2012

Muslim countries must alter their stance on the social sciences if they are to use technology to its full potential, says Athar Osama.

The last two centuries have reduced global hunger, poverty, and disease in ways that were previously unimaginable. The accelerating pace of technological development — computing, the Internet, the information and genetic engineering revolutions — only promises greater progress in coming decades.

But getting these developments to the people who need them is far from an exact science, as recent development experience has shown . For example, mechanisms for producing clean drinking water exist, but people continue to die of waterborne diseases, while millions — if not billions — go hungry, despite the fact that we have the capacity to eradicate world hunger.

On the one hand, technological innovation is a by-product of social processes; but on the other, an understanding of technology's social dimension, and the context in which it must operate, is critical to deriving value from it.  

Ideas, not ICTs

Jelel Ezzine, a cybernetics professor and director-general of international cooperation at Tunisia's Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, cautions against "overestimating the role of technology as the original cause of [a] change".

Rather, he views technology as a tool, and says he believes it is the application of this tool, as well as its social context, that is the most important issue.

Much was made of the power of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter during the Arab spring: the technology community quickly hailed such networks as an important means for ending dictatorships around the world.

But there has been a growing backlash against this idea in academic circles. "It was the power of the ideas, not the power of information and communications technology" that brought about democratic change in Tunisia, Ezzine says. [1]

Taking a technology-driven, rather than social science-driven approach, to development is not unique to Islamic countries, but it is much more prevalent and acute within them. This is primarily because of the poor development of the social sciences as rigorous and data-driven 'science' capable of providing an evidence base for development.

Neglecting the social dimension

This weak focus on social sciences might explain why — despite the availability of affordable technology — many Muslim societies have failed to exploit technology's development potential fully, viewing it as a status symbol rather than as solving real-world problems. The causes of this run deep and often go to the heart of how Islamic society views knowledge.  

Most leaders — including science leaders — in Muslim-majority countries are yet to fully appreciate  that a society develops and consumes knowledge in complex ways, and one body of knowledge (the hard sciences) cannot be separated from another (the social sciences). If natural sciences are to have their desired impact on society, leaders must learn from and respond to their social contexts.

For example, an electronic learning (e-learning) system needs to be built with a thorough understanding of the learning paradigm — which can be gained only through the social sciences. E-learning systems, based on the most sophisticated learning algorithms, cannot be successful without an understanding of its target users, the children. Social science insights from how students learn, for instance, can enable e-learning system designers to incorporate mastery-based learning approaches that could make a significant difference to learning outcomes.

But many Muslim-majority countries continue to struggle with the idea of creating a society where a culture of informed debate, freedom of thought and expression, critical inquiry, and the norms of criticism, dissent, and learning, can fully take root and flourish.

Limited opportunities

In the Islamic world, opportunities for social scientists to input into the process of scientific and technological development are limited.

For instance, there are no social scientists in the national scientific academiesof most nations — their voices are simply not heard. And science policymakingprocesses are dominated by natural scientists themselves, in contrast to developed countries, where scientists participate in processes often mediated by trained policy practitioners and economists who can analyse the costs and benefits of policies and make informed trade-offs.

Policies and programmes to involve social scientists in the development and evaluation of science and technology are, at best, considered an unnecessaryexpense. More often, evaluation and impact assessments of research — which are rooted in social science — are feared and even resented. Thus an opportunity to learn from one's mistakes is lost.

Countries across the Islamic world can only hope to fully capture the fruits of their investments in science and technology if they understand and act upon insights about how these are deployed for the benefit of society.

This calls for a fundamental shift in the way Islamic countries have traditionally viewed science, technology, and development. 

They must ensure the participation of diverse voices — particularly those from the social sciences — when debating and finalising development priorities, and academies must open their doors to social scientists, so that they can become truly integrated into development debates and processes.

Unless these countries pay adequate attention to the social context of technology in development, it will remain a marginal force for the billions who could — and should — benefit from its bounties.

 Athar Osama is a science and innovation policy consultant and advisor. He is the CEO of Technomics International Ltd, a UK-based international technology policy consulting firm, and founder of Muslim-Science.com and the Pakistan Innovation Foundation.

http://m.scidev.net/en/science-and-innovation-policy/science-in-the-islamic-world/opinions/islam-analysis-technology-s-missing-link-1.html

Open seas - The Arctic is the Mediterranean of the 21st century.

BY JAMES HOLMES | OCTOBER 29, 2012



If climate scientists' prophesies of an ice-free Arctic Ocean pan out, the world will witness the most sweeping transformation of geopolitics since the Panama Canal opened. Seafaring nations and industries will react assertively -- as they did when merchantmen and ships of war sailing from Atlantic seaports no longer had to circumnavigate South America to reach the Pacific Ocean. There are commercial, constabulary, and military components to this enterprise. The United States must position itself at the forefront of polar sea power along all three axes.

Understandably enough, most commentary on a navigable Arctic accentuates economic opportunities, such as extracting natural resources and shortening sea voyages. Countries fronting on polar waters -- the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden comprise the intergovernmental Arctic Council -- will enjoy exclusive rights to fish and tap undersea resources in hundreds of thousands of square miles of water off their shores. Nations holding waterfront property in the Arctic will bolster their coast guards to police their territorial seas and exclusive economic zones during ice-free intervals.

But they will not be the only beneficiaries. Former U.S. Navy chief oceanographer David Titleyestimates that "sometime between 2035 and 2040 there is a pretty good chance that the Arctic Ocean will be essentially ice-free for about a month" each year. If so, polar shipping lanes will cut transit distances by up to 40 percent, saving ship owners big bucks on fuel and maintenance. They could pass those savings on to producers and consumers of the cargo their vessels carry. Global warming, it appears, could bestow significant advantages on mariners, fostering economic growth in the bargain. New sources of wealth concentrate minds.

But the geopolitics of climate change is just as consequential as the economics, and more intriguing. A strategic realignment could take place as the geographic setting -- the arena where great powers grapple for advantage -- widens to enfold a new inland sea. Navies will dispatch squadrons to the Arctic Ocean lest it become a theater for naval rivalry.

There's precedent for this. This is not the first time new portals to inland seas have opened -- or navies have scrambled to control access to new nautical highways. Until 1869, for example, shipping could enter the Mediterranean Sea only though the Strait of Gibraltar. Geography compelled European ships to round Africa or South America to reach Asia. Passage from the British Isles to India consumed up to six months.

Human enterprise changed all that. Opening the Suez Canal wrought a revolution in maritime affairs, shaving nearly 3,900 miles off the journey to Asia while converting the Mediterranean from a true inland sea into a thoroughfare for commerce and military endeavors. The Mediterranean and Red seas were now a conduit to the Indian Ocean. Europeans, and in particular Britons, swiveled their strategic gaze -- and their naval power -- southeastward. The canal tightened Europe's commercial and military grip on Asia.

Or there's the Caribbean and Gulf. Before 1914, when the Panama Canal opened its locks, America looked eastward to Europe. After 1914, transoceanic passage abridged steaming distancesbetween the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific coasts by 5,000 miles or more. And, in effect, the waterway teleported Atlantic seaports closer to Asia. Writing in 1944, Yale University scholar Nicholas Spykman observed that New York suddenly found itself closer to Shanghai than the British seaport of Liverpool was.

Less circuitous, less time-consuming voyages to the Far East bestowed commercial and military advantages on the United States vis-à-vis its European competitors -- allowing the United States to reinforce its standing as a Pacific power. Constructing a transoceanic canal, wrote Spykman, "had the effect of turning the whole of the United States around on its axis." The republic now faced south toward the Caribbean and west toward Pacific waters -- dividing its gaze between Europe and the Far East. Talk about a pivot to Asia!

U.S. leaders who felt the tug of the sea -- notably Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, andAlfred Thayer Mahan -- glimpsed this strategic revolution before it took place. Before the Spanish-American War, for instance, Mahan was already warning that European imperial powers would seek naval bases in the Caribbean Sea -- bases from which they could control the sea lanes leading to the Isthmus. Official Washington should undertake that kind of strategic forethought today -- lest the United States find itself playing material, intellectual, and doctrinal catch-up when Arctic sea routes open.

Admittedly, an accessible Arctic Ocean probably won't rearrange the physical and mental map of the world to the same degree as the Suez or Panama canals. Even Admiral Titley's forecast indicates that northern waters will remain off-limits to shipping around eleven months of the year, as the icecap expands and contracts. Consequently, there will be a rhythm to polar seafaring not found in temperate seas. And that seasonal rhythm could be erratic. The icepack's advance and retreat will presumably vary from year to year with temperature fluctuations. Navigable routes will prove unpredictable -- limiting the scope of commercial and military endeavors.

But even partial and episodic access to Arctic sea lanes will add a northern vector to seagoing nations' strategic calculus. Not just Arctic countries but countries like China, Japan, and South Korea -- countries that look eastward across the Pacific or southward toward the Indian Ocean when thinking about maritime security -- will cast their gaze toward such polar entryways as the Bering Strait, Baffin Bay, and the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. gap.

What will they see? The intermittent appearance and disappearance of a mediterranean sea -- a body of water nearly or wholly enclosed by land -- atop the world could renew interest in geopolitical theories that have lain dormant for decades. Starting in 1904, for instance, Sir Halford Mackinder published influential works exploring the relationship between land and sea power. Great Britain's Royal Navy had ruled the waves since the eighteenth century. Mackinder wrote with an eye toward preserving British geopolitical ascendancy, which was premised on mastery of what Spykman termed the "surrounding string of marginal and mediterranean seas which separates the continent from the oceans" and "constitutes a circumferential maritime highway which links the whole area together in terms of sea power."

Sea power is about strategic mobility. A maritime nation with unfettered access to littoral waters enjoys the liberty to maneuver around the periphery -- radiating power into Eurasia without heavy ground forces. Yet Mackinder fretted that land power would win out over British sea power, tapping the strategic mobility offered by railways and steam propulsion. He famously designated the Eurasian "Heartland" -- a vast central plain ringed by mountains, and bounded by the Arctic to the north -- the key to world dominance. Indeed, his main analytical tool was a map centered on the "pivot area" encompassing and adjoining Siberia.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/29/open_seas