Social innovation with public purpose transforms ideas into concrete benefits for citizens. It aims to effectively solve relevant social problems and build a more inclusive, fair and sustainable society, prioritising the common good.

Public Purpose Innovation Co-lab

The Co-Laboratory Innovation with Public Purpose aims to be a space that creates innovative solutions for social and productive transformation, where visions for the future are built for the country's public challenges.

Responding to these challenges requires public and private organisations to work together in a new way and with a public purpose. It is essential to distinguish between social innovation, understood as that which arises from and for communities, and public innovation, which is usually focused on the modernization of state institutions. On the other hand, our proposal is framed within an innovation with a public purpose, which articulates both approaches and transcends them, focusing on the common good through collaborative solutions that emerge from the intersection between different sectors and knowledge.

For this reason, this space is conceived as an interface to promote effective innovation, based on a systemic approach of the quintuple helix, betting on a catalytic innovation that incorporates the knowledge production of the University, in a network of strategic partners composed of public agencies, civil society foundations, companies and also civic organisations. It is characterised by its flexibility and its interdisciplinary and open scientific approach, integrating different areas of knowledge and programmes of the Universidad de Chile.

The Co-lab will ensure an equilibrium and diversity of partners, fostering the active participation of actors from various sectors and territories, with attention to gender, territorial equity and thematic diversity, to enhance legitimacy and broaden impact.

In this sense, the research co-production of the co-laboratory will be highly integrated, bringing together knowledge from different disciplines and actors, following a transdisciplinary and collaborative logic. The aim of this co-production will be, on the one hand, to identify and understand national and international innovation trends and, on the other hand, to diagnose, evaluate and provide solutions and tools for complex social problems.

Ultimately, the Public Purpose Innovation Co-lab seeks to position itself as a dynamic and reflexive platform that uses research as a key input to produce innovation, grounded in public interest, oriented by collaborative governance, and activated by the transformative potential of knowledge.

General Objective:

Implement disruptive solutions with a public purpose that increase social, economic and environmental value in key productive sectors, catalyzing the production of knowledge from a transdisciplinary approach.

Specific Objectives:
  • Set a transdisciplinary collaborative ecosystem to address sustainable development across extractive and services sectors.
  • Pursuing ground-breaking curatorship of valuable ideas from the production of knowledge that help reduce costs and increase effectiveness across extractive and services sectors.
  • Evaluate the systemic effectiveness and implementation of disruptive solutions across lines.
  • Accelerate the transfer flux through prototyping, validation, scalability and mixed licensing of technological solutions
  • Train advanced talent that effectively responds to sectoral requirements.
  • Promote, from an intersectional gender approach, the addition of value to productive development.
  • Advocate through a communications strategy to disseminate progress and results in the public sphere.
  • Monitoring and continuously evaluating the quality of progress and results.
Mission:

Propel a new technology transfer model to accelerate the sustainable and productive transformation of the country.

Vision:

Become the trusted advisor within collaborative ecosystems for the development of public purpose innovations, through disruptive technological solutions in response to the main challenges of the country's sustainable and productive development.

Strategic Knowledge Transfer for Scalable Public Impact:

To maximise its public impact, CLIPP emphasises knowledge transfer as an integral strategic axis:

  • Prototyping and Project Acceleration: Development of replicable solutions in different contexts.
  • Social Licensing: Creation of transfer models that guarantee accessibility and sustainability.
  • Training: Design of training programs to strengthen local and national capacities.
Empowering Innovation Through Applied Research and Capacity Building

This will provide tools, diagnostics and solutions for transfer. The aim of the knowledge transfers carried out by the co-laboratory is to influence through the packaging of research prototypes and to empower users in terms of their use and application, in order to collaborate in solving complex productive problems. These transfers can be carried out through social licensing and training models, where the design, adaptation and piloting are carried out together with the communities, researchers and institutions involved. Thanks to the collaboration with different institutions, their research and transfers, the co-laboratory also aims to develop a line of training in productive innovation with a public purpose. This dimension aims to create a curricular offer of courses, diplomas, masters and doctorates focused on the various areas in which the centre works: innovative methodologies, design and evaluation and implementation of programmes, development and implementation of new technologies.

Public purpose innovation aims to create tangible benefits for citizens by pursuing goals that matter to people, motivated by public interest considerations rather than profit and profit maximisation (Galbraith, 1973 and Mazzucato, 2021). Innovation is driven by the public interest and the common good to solve the problems facing 21st century societies and to create a more inclusive, just and sustainable society.

CLIPP in numbers

15.2

Average H-index

  • 38 relevant projects and articles between 2020 and 2024.
  • 51.5% women representation.
  • 27 partners:
    6 Companies, 16 Academy, 6 Civil Society and 9 Public Sector.
A space for Innovation

Our Innovation Co-Laboratory, located in the centre of the city, connects spaces for strengthening the civic fabric and fosters collaboration between different actors. This space aims to be a meeting place to generate creative solutions that have a positive impact on social and urban development.