Last summer, Andy Stirling and Adrian Smith were invited to contribute a ‘thinkpiece’ about grassroots innovation to Friends of the Earth’s Big Ideas series. We explored how grassroots innovation initiatives, in areas such as community energy, seed swapping, and socially useful production, contribute to a wider democratisation of innovation, and how this could be better suported and enhanced. The technologies, services, and organisations generated through innovative activity have widespread implications in societies, and it is for this reason that we think democracy is a relevant question in innovation practice and policy. Grassroots activity contributes democratising capabilities in a variety of ways. Our report was picked up by the Journal of Self-organization and Economic Management and we were invited to submit a revised version. That article has now been published, and you can download and read it here.
Grassroots Innovations
researching sustainability from the bottom up
Grassroots Innovations 