Developing a global network for change in Brussels

Last month the Common Good First partners participated in a dynamic social innovation event that took place on September 6^th and 7^th at Scotland House in Brussels. The event was organised by our colleagues from Glasgow Caledonian University, with the support of the European Commission, in particular the International Capacity Building Unit. They who wanted to bring together participants from various points around the globe in order to envisage, propose and, subsequently, establish a worldwide network that explores and demonstrates how universities can support social innovation more effectively.

This aspiration evolved through the experience, in particular, of three projects funded under the European Commission’s Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education programme and coordinated by GCU: the Latin American Social Innovation Network, the Southeast Asian Social Innovation Network, and of course Common Good First in South Africa.

Over the course of two days, representatives of universities from Latin America, Southeast Asia, South Africa and Europe were able to interact with each other and with other social innovation actors from the same regions and learn about each other’s projects and plans. There were plenty of opportunities to discuss future collaborations, and dynamic workshops to brainstorm innovative solutions to social problems.

Our colleagues Julie Adair, Bibi Bouwman, Darelle van Greunen and Adelaide Sheik teamed up to promote the Common Good First project, including the importance of the social innovation projects identified in South Africa and the idea behind our upcoming networking event in Johannesburg. There was great interest in particular from the participants for our platform, and we hope that this will result in support for taking it global once we’re ready to launch it!

As ever, we created a video of our time together, produced by Will at Bundu Media.