Social Innovation Defined
Social Innovation is a novel process or product that intends to generate more effective and just solutions to address complex social problems, for collective gain. (Beckman, Rosen, Estrada-Miller, and Painter, 2023)
Traditional policy approaches have failed to catalyze significant and lasting change for many complex social problems, such as homelessness, justice involvement and reentry, and educational achievement. Social innovation, which is an iterative, inclusive process that intends to generate more effective and just solutions to solve complex social problems, provides an alternative to traditional problem solving approaches. The Price Center conducts research on all aspects of social innovation, which offers both new processes and new models for solving society’s most persistent social challenges.
About the Price Center
The mission of the USC Sol Price Center for Social Innovation is to develop ideas and illuminate strategies to improve the quality of life for people in low-income urban communities.
In November 2011, Price Philanthropies made an extraordinary $50 million gift to the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy to honor the life and legacy of Sol Price, founder of Price Club. The naming gift also launched the Sol Price Center for Social Innovation.
The mission of the Sol Price Center for Social Innovation is to develop ideas and illuminate strategies to improve the quality of life for people in low-income urban communities. Together with the Price School’s academic rigor and practice-based expertise, the Sol Price Center for Social Innovation works to advance new models of equity and opportunity for low-income children and families, as well as advance the field of social innovation through scholarship and rigorous academic inquiry.
Research
The USC Price Center for Social Innovation brings an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to social innovation research. Through relevant, rigorous research, Price Center faculty explore a variety of topics that seek to inform and advance new models of equity and opportunity for low-income children and families.
Education
Despite decades of traditional policy approaches to closing the achievement gap, disparities in educational attainment still exist by race and socioeconomic economic circumstances. The Price Center conducts research to develop, scale, and diffuse new models and processes to improve educational attainment across all grade levels, including postsecondary education.
Housing Instability
Housing stability is one of the most critical policy issues of our time, and traditional policy levers have failed to catalyze the change needed to provide safe, affordable housing for all populations. The Price Center conducts a wide range of research to improve housing stability through a community-driven process of piloting and testing new practices, bringing them to scale, and ultimately diffusing those practices into systems change.
Inequality
Despite a number of traditional policy and legislative attempts to reduce inequality in the United States, far too many individuals are adversely affected by racial inequality, segregation, economic and wealth inequality, gender disparities, and other systemic barriers that prevent individuals from reaching their full potential. The Price Center conducts a wide range of research to address inequality across multiple spaces and policy areas in the United States and abroad.
Criminal Justice
Nationally, one in three Americans have a criminal record, and by extension, face lifelong barriers to employment and economic mobility for themselves as well as for their families. The Price Center conducts a range of research to develop, scale, and diffuse new models to build a more inclusive workforce for justice-involved individuals, which a focus on young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 who have been involved in the justice system and as a result are not in school and not working.