Societal Renewal : where social entrepreneurship and municipal government meet

On November 2014 at Impact Hub Amsterdam, 30 civil servants, politicians and social entrepreneurs were brought together for a two-part innovation lab – named the Societal Renewal Lab – where a dedicated group with diverse perspectives was invited to take a deeper dive into understanding the system constraints that get in the way of collaboration around shared goals for a healthier society. We focused on the question: How can we create an enabling environment for social enterprising?
We created a space to support meaning-making and explore what it is that enables collaboration and social enterprising towards societal renewal. This initiative was made possible through the collaboration of Alterra at Wageningen University, Impact Hub Amsterdam and Publieke Versnellers; it was inspired by the Borders to Cross initiative and fed into the EU FP7 project enabling the flourishing and evolution of social entrepreneurship for innovative and inclusive societies: EFESEIIS. This article is a reflection paper based on our own learning from the Lab experience, and furthered at the SI LIVE 2014 event in Lisbon which brought together leading social innovators, academics and practitioners to discuss how best to incubate and scale social innovation in Europe.
This article is a personal and collaborative reflection piece on the process and learnings of this Societal Renewal Lab, as convenors of this workshop. It is our observation that the Lab – being a participatory and co-creative process – was in itself a small contributor to societal renewal through offering a space for authentic dialogue and listening and in building trust between civil servants and social entrepreneurs.
Thank you for all who participated and so openly shared experiences and insights.