About the Journal

Social Innovations Journal (SIJ) is dedicated to social innovators and entrepreneurs who work at the cross section between the private sector, government, and not-for-profits and aligns them toward collective social impact goals and public policy.  SIJ chronicles social innovations and enterprises addressing the world’s most challenging issues surrounding social policy, leadership, human capital, and systems. In collaboration with government, philanthropy, not-for-profits and universities, the Journal bridges formal research and real-life experience.

Social Innovations Journal (SIJ) provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater exchange of knowledge.

This journal is open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to users or / institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to full text articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or author as long as acknowledge the original author as stated in the Creative Commons License. 

The mission of the Social Innovations Journal is to promote innovative ideas informed by data and research, incubate social innovation and thought leadership, and to spark a culture of innovation leading to improved social sector products and services, systems and policies.  SIJ is creating a new standard for social innovations and enterprise publications by including the “why” behind their innovation, their bottom line impact (social and financial), and the system and policy implications.

The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) defines social innovation as a mechanism that “can concern conceptual, process or product change, organizational change and changes in financing, and can deal with new relationships with stakeholders and territories.” The OECD’s Forum on Social Innovation identifies the core components of social innovation as: 

  • “identifying and delivering new services that improve the quality of life of individuals and communities; and 
  • “identifying and implementing new labour market integration processes, new competencies, new jobs, and new forms of participation, as diverse elements that each contribute to improving the position of individuals in the workforce.” 

In the words of the OECD, “Social innovation is distinct from economic innovation because it is not about introducing new types of production or exploiting new markets in itself but is about satisfying new needs not provided by the market (even if markets intervene later) or creating new, more satisfactory ways of insertion in terms of giving people a place and a role in production.

“The key distinction is that social innovation deals with improving the welfare of individuals and community through employment, consumption or participation, its expressed purpose being therefore to provide solutions for individual and community problems.”

Publishing Fees

SIJ does not currently charge article processing fees or submission charges for authors. The Journal is supported primarily through an annual fundraising event.

Peer Review Policy
SIJ serves as a crossroads connecting academia and social sector practitioners. The Journal is comprised of both research papers and practice-driven articles. Currently, over 50% of the articles are peer reviewed, and we have set a policy to keep that number above 40%. The original SIJ was practitioner-driven only and regional in focus. This site is an attempt to build a bridge to and from academia.

All submissions to SIJ are first reviewed for completeness and then sent to be assessed by an Editor who decides whether they are suitable for peer review or general submission. Where an Editor is on the author list or has any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another member of the Editorial Board will be assigned to oversee peer review. Editors will consider the peer-reviewed reports when making a decision, but are not bound by the opinions or recommendations therein. A concern raised by a single peer reviewer or the Editor themself may result in the manuscript being rejected. Each edition consists of peer review from content-area experts and our Editorial Board.

Archiving 

SIJ uses the PKP Preservation Network for long-term preservation of articles. 

Open Access, Licensing, and Copyright 

The Social Innovations Journal is loyal open access for academic work, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of its articles and to use them for any other lawful purpose. All the articles published in this journal are free to access immediately from the date of publication. We do not charge any fees for any reader to download articles for their own scholarly use.

The Social Innovations Journal permits the Creative Commons License:

CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0

Under the following terms:

  • No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Notices:

  • You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
  • No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material

Copyright and Publishing Rights

For the licenses indicated above, authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions.

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