Social Innovation

With the emergence of the digital age and the Internet, the usual attachment of innovation to research institutions and companies, a model that has prevailed since the beginning of the 20th century, has over recent years, been supplemented by a social and “bottom up” form of innovation. This innovation is linked to the spread of communication techniques but also of production techniques, and as it prospers, it shakes the foundations of industry, calling into question the established methods of innovation and research, the division between production and consumption, and even the question of industrial property and the very definition of a company. While, on this subject, the most obvious example is IT and in particular open source, the objectives of this issue are to propose a broad panorama of innovative practices and to outline the main issues involved. Instead of reading this issue in a systematic and linear manner, the option is left to the reader, like the subject of the issue – social innovation – to orient his or her reading as they so wish.