Education for Social Innovation: FAL Model and Transfer of Best Practices

Abstract

The content and scope of social innovation are ongoing development and diversification. The learning technologies and models incurred by social innovation become the necessary support of social innovation. The paradigm of this context consists in the fact that the educational technologies represent processes of social innovation. The current paper aims to highlight, in synthesis, relevant issues concerning education for social innovation and to substantiate, the extended FAL model. FAL model represents the synergy of three processes, indispensable to social innovation: accountability (A), learning (L) and feedback (F), being developed in the framework of the European research project: Learning from Innovation in Public Sector Environments (LIPSE). Sustainability and transferability of the initiatives of social innovation could be added to those processes. The extended FAL model will have the design necessary to a new approach of education for innovation, usable especially in higher education institutions. Based on a cybernetic learning system or an adaptive system, modeling and description will start from the idea that organizational learning is a social affair, and therefore it valorizes the outcomes and impact of social learning. At the same time, organizational learning is considered a combination between knowledge and behaviour, with characteristics deriving from the specificity of public organizations. For FAL model, accountability is important also due to its public characteristics. For the social environment, the sustainability and transferability of social innovation become important in the context of the contemporary social changes and transformations. The research methodology will use systemic modeling, bibliographic syntheses, empirical researches of initiatives of social innovation from various European programmes. Herewith, we refer to development initiatives/projects of local communities, awarded at European level. The best practices will result from juxtaposition of extended FAL model over the structure and contents of those initiatives.