Innovation Report 2019

Innovation Report 2019 Website

Interested in participating in this year’s report? Then, visit our Innovation Report 2020 page

2019 ‘Civil Society Innovation and Populism in a Digital Era’

Our first ever annual Innovation Report in 2019 – ‘Civil Society Innovation and Populism in a Digital Era’, in partnership with JustLabs – showcases 14 innovative civil society responses in the face of rising populism, one of the defining political features of our times.  This is the first publication to take a broad civil society overview in documenting and sharing effective response strategies and case studies from a range of organisations – national CSOs and networks, ICSOs and campaigns or movements.

It presents different innovative strategies by CSOs that respond effectively to some of the challenges and defining features of populism. The case studies include reflections on specific contextual factors – including the role of digital media – and details of the audiences targeted, the tools and tactics used, and the stage of implementation. All are trying new methods of strengthening CSO impact, legitimacy and relevant in contexts where populism presents challenges to this,

To help share the lessons of these case studies, our report:

• Defines and describes the key features of each populist context, and summarises key digital dimensions,
• Analyses and categorises each case study as a ‘core’, ‘adjacent’ or ‘transformational’ innovation, and by its maturity as ‘experimental’, ’emerging’ or ‘established’, with key takeaways from each,
• Provides an overall set of key recommendations, inspiring think pieces about the future, and key related resources.

With our systematic overview of the case studies, we hope that civil society organisations around the world are inspired to adapt and deploy new strategies to respond in contexts of growing populism.

Think you might have a case study to share?

Potential case studies for the Innovation Report are identified through a mix of crowdsourcing and curation. If you have something of interest on Civil Society Innovation and Urban Inclusion for 2020, please tell us some basic information below:

About our Innovation Reports

We believe one of our roles is to bring international civil society sector innovations into focus. There is a significant opportunity for organisations to benefit more from the lessons others have learned, or are in the process of addressing, particularly in the context of complex common external challenges. Our reports aim to support this.