Understanding the role of internal governance units in the process of social innovation: The case of Shared Lives Plus in England

Amid increasing demand for public services and stretched resources policymakers often promote ‘social innovation’ to address these tensions. However, critics argue that social innovation may just be a ‘fashionable concept’ or ‘buzzword’ in public policy discourse and that more empirical research is needed to help improve our understanding of the actors and mechanisms that drive effective social innovations. In response this article draws upon a case study of the development of Shared Lives as an alternative national model of adult social care in England over the past 40 years. Drawing on interviews with 50 individuals carried-out between late-2021 and early-2023, including those involved in four different local schemes, we highlight the positive role played by the organisation Shared Lives Plus, which we conceptualise as an ‘internal governance unit’ (IGU), in terms of establishing and maintaining a ‘community innovation infrastructure’. However, the example of Shared Lives also illustrates the difficult challenges IGUs can face in trying to move social innovations beyond an institutional ‘niche’. • Transformative social innovation involves the alteration or replacement of dominant institutions • Social innovation may require a ‘community innovation infrastructure’ • Networks of expertise, regulations and standards, and shared promotional activities may underpin social innovations • Civil society organisations can play a central role as ‘internal governance units’ within social innovation ecosystems • Shared Lives is an example of a social innovation ‘niche’ in English adult social care