The Social Ideas Podcast: renewal for Newfoundland

posted in: Social innovation | 0
Boats and sheds in coastal fishing village during sunset in Newfoundland, Canada.

The Social Ideas Podcast

The Social Ideas Podcast shares the impact of social innovation, its necessity and its capacity to challenge the status quo. Throughout this series, highly committed change makers in business, civil society, policy and academia will talk about their work, their ideas and their motivation to strive towards to a more equitable and sustainable world.

Fishing for funding

More than two million dollars has recently been awarded to the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The funding is to enable 40 projects across different faculties the opportunity to “solve the big problems”[1].

$124,239 of the funding is going to Dr John Schouten, the Canada Research Chair in Social Enterprise, in the Faculty of Business Administration: his project is entitled Cultural renewal in Newfoundland and Labrador: Lessons from Fishing for Success, a social enterprise in Petty Harbour, N.L. The Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation’s co-director, Dr Neil Stott, is one of the collaborators for both the funding bid and the project.

The social enterprise featured in the title of Dr Schouten’s project is Fishing for Success[2]; this non-profit company is dedicated to sharing and celebrating the traditional fishing knowledge and culture that sustained generations of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

The funding, he says, will give him and collaborators from around the world, the opportunity to learn about Fishing for Success’s best practices.

For one week a term, during their first year with us, our Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation’s MSt in Social Innovation students attend residential. During that time, they attend lectures led by the Cambridge Judge Business School’s highly regarded faculty; and, they have opportunity to gain a greater understanding of social innovation from the perspectives and insights of our guest speakers, who come from different sectors, different walks of life, and different countries.

This March, John was one of our guest speakers; and, in this podcast he discusses how his research is about taking the tools of social enterprise and interpreting them in such way as to empower the communities of Newfoundland & Labrador.

In this episode of The social Ideas Podcast, Dr John Schouten discusses why he so passionate about social enterprise and how it can help Newfoundland.


[1] https://gazette.mun.ca/research/insight-and-talent/

[2] https://www.islandrooms.org/

Pam Mungroo

Pam Mungroo

Pam Mungroo

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