ABSTRACT
This chapter examines social innovation beyond the local, and attemps to understand the nature by which it may spread and create major impact. Based on a fundamental understanding of things that undertake the actual work of social innovation, it aims to develop the notion that the impact of social innovation depends on processes of connection and reinvention, rather than of replication or "scaling". The parallel with network governance raises some interesting issues for social innovation networks, with regard to both their nature and eventual evolution. The chapter explores what sort of a role exists for the designer, and analyzes how this role can be ethically fulfilled. The process of "scaling", or using a proto-solution to bring about action in a different context, is not about "transferring a model" from one context to another, but about connecting it to new contexts, as a catalyst for local work.
