[1R10] How effective is an open social innovation platform to accelerate co-creating local SDGs projects at a city level? - Case study on the IMAGINE KANAZAWA 2030 Partners project in Kanazawa City, Japan
Keywords:open innovation, platform, SDGs, local multi-stakeholder governance, policy evaluation
[Background] Tackling unprecedented social issues such as SDGs, the international society has shown keen attention to open social innovation (Chesbrough and Minin 2014) and applied the concept to their policies to form and expand social projects. Despite the growing attention, the academic research on the approach is still limited in evaluations of national-level projects and conceptualization of a living lab approach that the private sector leads. The know-how has not satisfactorily been accumulated especially on the approaches at a city level and a project that involves multi-stakeholder collaboration and develops their ecosystem, which hampers the formulation of locally tailored city policies. Through evaluating an open social innovation platform project led by Kanazawa city government, Japan, this research extracts implications for designing effective local policies of open social innovation and contributes to global discussions on collaboration and co-creation to address global development agenda. [Research questions] How effective is Kanazawa city’s project towards its policy objectives? What kinds of obstacles do the platform members face to co-create and expand social projects? How can be the city’s project improved to accelerate its members’ action towards SDGs? [Methodology] Online questionnaire survey on the members. Impact evaluation using before-and-after analysis, difference-in-differences analysis and induction from statistical data and quantitative responses. [Findings] The project provided positive impacts on the members’ knowledge, sense of affinity and willingness to contribute after the registration in the platform. The members still feel difficulty in co-creating projects. The purposes of participation differ depending on member attributes, and it is suggested that the platform unintentionally allows existence of ‘SDGs wash’ and that the shortage of members causes the partial absence of markets. The research highlights the importance of a project coordinator function, such as orchestration, event design, and support of business formulation skills and recognition and trust development among the members.
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