About the Forum
Mission and Scope
A joint venture of the Canadian Science Policy Centre and The/La Collaborative, the Forum convenes cross-sectoral dialogues that benefit from the input of social sector organisation leaders, social innovation practitioners, decision- and policy-makers, research and higher education policy stakeholders and social and human sciences researchers. Participants engage around deliberative dialogue workshops to create alignment on education, policies and practices and deliver concerted action plans.
The third edition of the Canadian Forum for Social Innovation Forum will be held in Halifax June 2-4 2025 in partnership with Social Innovation Canada and hosted at Dalhousie University.
This year’s gathering will explore themes connected to ecosystem capacity for mission-oriented innovation. Forum 2025 builds on a series of consultative and sense-making workshops, literature reviews, surveys and a national dialogue leveraging backcasting methodologies to produce a Roadmap for Canada’s Innovation Ecosystems. that draft articulate the challenge. In April and May
2024 in Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal and Calgary, we collected input on a preliminary proposal of
the vision and milestones to map the road for Canada’s innovation ecosystem.
– The Right Honourable David Johnston 28th Governor General of CanadaCANADA faces significant social, environmental and financial challenges. Such challenges – for example, poverty and homelessness, youth unemployment, demographic change and the marginalization of certain populations – require creative thinking and collaboration due to their complex, multi-layered nature. They call for social innovations that explore new approaches to building resilience, fostering inclusions and enhancing sustainability.
In April and May 2024, the Canadian Forum for Social Innovation and the McMaster’s Social Innovation Ideas and Action Lab joined forces with key partners Social Innovation Canada, le Conseil de l’innovation du Québec and the University of Calgary to facilitate a series of deliberative workshops in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Calgary.
On 11 and 12 June 2024 in Montreal, Forum guests will participate in an immersive backcasting exercises aiming at creating a roadmap for Canada’s innovation ecosystem with the aim to formulate an agenda for Canada 2040 that revolves around collective action to increase talent and expertise for the social impact ecosystem and techno-social transitions.