Design and Social Innovation: methodological principles for community qualification

Abstract

The analysis of activities and processes configured by qualitative methods has shown effi-cient results within the field of Social Innovation, in the sense of building collaborative work and community involvement for sustainable social development. This paper reports the first experimental part of the doctorate research project, where these methods, geared toward social problems, help to elucidate questions necessary for design and contribute to the structuring of new forms of production of goods and services. The results obtained in this stage become tools used to create and structure a collaboration network, and thus pro-pose efficient and sustainable solutions that benefit social groups and generate new opportunities for work and income.