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Reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian plurality has stalled. While the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) Calls to Action could be a focusing event, creating a window of opportunity for transformative social innovations; we see coalescing of interest, social capital and investment in decolonization and indigenization in the proliferation of professorships, programs, installations and statements. However, Blackfoot (Siksika) Elder Roy Bear Chief raised significant concerns that Indigenous knowledge, experiences and people are not yet seen as relevant and useful in higher education; such marginalization must be addressed at a systems level for authentic reconciliation at any colonial university. The purpose of this paper was to explore this dual goal of exploring barriers to and opportunities for Indigenous knowledges and knowledge holders to be valued as relevant and useful in the Canadian academy, using a complexity- and systems-informed lens.

Local Indigenous Elders provided guidance to reflect study purpose and target audience of academics, with an approach that respectfully weaved Westernized research methods and co-learning through indigenous knowledge mobilization strategies. This analysis extends results from a qualitative grounded theory study to explain social processes of professors and administrative leadership in a Canadian mid-sized university regarding barriers and facilitators of implementing TRC Calls to Action. This further interpretation of applied systems and panarchy heuristics broadens understanding to how such micro-social processes are positioned and influence larger scale institutional change.

This paper discusses how the social process of dominionization intentionally minimizes meaningful system disruption by othering indigenous knowledge and knowledge holders; this form of system-reinforcing boundary work contributes to rigidity and inhibits potentially transformative innovations from scaling beyond individual niches and moments in time. Elders’ consultation throughout the research process, including co-learning the meaning of findings, led to the gifting of traditional teachings and emerging systems and multi-scale framework on the relevance of indigenous knowledges and peoples in higher education.

This study was performed in one faculty of one Canadian institution; an important and potentially widely-present social process was identified. Further research is needed for greater generalizability. Conditions that led to this study are increasingly common across Canada, where at least one third of higher education organizations have explicit indigenization strategies and internationally where the rights and self-determination of indigenous peoples are growing.

Insights from this study can inform conversations about social innovation in institutional settings, and the current systems’ resistance to change, particularly when exploring place-based solutions to national/international questions. These initiatives have yet to transform institutions, and while transformation is rarely rapid (Moore et al., 2018), for these potential innovations to grow, they need to be sustainable beyond a brief window of opportunity. Scaling up or deep within the academy seems to remain stubbornly elusive despite attention to the TRC.

This study contributes to a growing literature that explores the possibilities and opportunities between Indigenous epistemologies and social innovation study and practice (McGowan, 2019; Peredo, McLean and Tremblay, 2019; Conrad, 2015), as well as scholarship around Indigenization and decolonization in Canada and internationally.

This paper focuses on an Egyptian experience of participation in the design of a vegetable and fruit market. In 1999, the re-design of the Tablita Market based on community participation was proposed as one of the components of a larger encompassing project aiming at the economic revitalization and environmental upgrading of Al-Darb Al-Ahmar; a physically deteriorating district located in the medieval city referred to as Historic Cairo. The idea was that the upgrade of this major local market would serve in promoting comprehensive environmental and physical upgrading of the whole Al-Darb Al-Ahmar. The funding for upgrading the Tablita Market required the vendors’ participation in the new design.

This paper presents the participatory design process that we initially designed as well as its development and adjustment during implementation. The aim is to discuss to what extent the conflicts of interest and power relations among actors, inflamed by the historic dimension of the place, affect the process of participatory design. What type of reactions did the participatory design process provoke among the vendors and other actors including the local government authorities? Are there winners and losers in participatory design?

In preparation for the community participation workshops, the findings from the Needs Assessment research were analyzed using the concept of Functional Opportunities (Shehayeb, 1995) to show the relation between the advantages and disadvantages, problems and concerns expressed by the different actors. These were then summarized into six categories of Functional Opportunities that represent the Goals of the vendors. The means of achieving these goals were to be explored in a series of workshops with different groups of vendors. The criteria for selecting each group was to mix in awareness levels, but not power, so as to give an opportunity for the less influential vendors to express their opinion and not be dominated by the more powerful leaders of the vendor community. A scaled model of the existing Tablita Market was constructed as an aid to help the participants spatially represent their ideas. After implementing the first and second group workshops, the reactions to those events necessitated a revision of the process as well as a readjustment among ourselves as to the goals and impacts of this process. It turned out to be much more than a process involving a group of vendors in the re-design of a market place.

The purpose of this study is to develop functional probiotic Labneh cheeses supplemented with broccoli florets.

Probiotic Labneh cheese was produced using broccoli florets paste at four different levels (0, 5, 10 and 15%), with Lactobacillus casei NRRL B-1922 as a probiotic strain, to evaluate its physicochemical, phenols, antioxidant activity, minerals, vitamins, textural, microbiological and sensory characteristics during storage for 15 days.

The results indicated that Labneh cheese with added broccoli paste exhibited significantly (p = 0.05) higher level of moisture, acidity, soluble nitrogen, phenols, antioxidant activity, minerals and B vitamins, and lower protein, fat, ash and pH values when compared to control Labneh cheese. Textural analysis of Labneh cheese indicated that Labneh with higher level of broccoli (15%) exhibited harder texture than others. Higher viable counts of Lactobacillus casei and Streptococcus thermophilus were detected in Labneh with broccoli paste, and the counts (107 cfu/g) were higher than the number should be present to achieve their health benefits. The most acceptable Labneh cheeses were those supplemented with 5 and 10% broccoli paste.

This study revealed broccoli florets could enhance the growth of Lactobacillus casei and Streptococcus thermophilus in the Labneh matrix, which resulted in a wider spectrum of health benefits of Labneh cheese to the consumers.

The purpose of this study is to explore the development of “social innovation (SI)” research within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) context.

This paper explores academic databases (Web of Science/Scopus/Sage), to identify relevant papers focused on SI. Using a systematic literature review (SLR) with narrative-assessment approach, the “VOSviewer” tool is used to analyse relationships between themes/subthemes related to SI in HEIs. Additionally, Excel’s polynomial-trendline feature is used to track publication numbers over time.

This research identified five themes related to HEIs and SI trends, each exposing important aspects of higher education and SI, including “Sustainable Development; Social Entrepreneurship; Digital Transformation; Research; and Innovation Culture.” This research also identifies best practices of global universities and their SI programmes across 19 topics, including changes in publication volume since 1996.

The SLR reveals research gaps related to HEIs and SI trends that require further investigation. Each of these areas gives scholars/practitioners opportunities for in-depth investigation.

The findings of this study encourage global HEIs to implement SI, become acquainted with the present themes and the programmes conducted by HEIs, recognise the importance of SI trends and fill HE provision gaps around SI.

This paper contributes to knowledge on the promotion of SI in HEIs and sustainable development, while identifying gaps for further research.