From Design Thinking to Systems Change

This report takes the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI), a twophase pre-procurement innovation programme that aims to match social challenges with new ideas, as its primary case study. It suggests augmenting the excellent design thinking deployed through SBRI with a think like a system, act like an entrepreneur lens in order to drive better social outcomes from SBRI-originating innovations. Programmes like SBRI have great potential to drive change and address pressing challenges, but must be guided by a more developed understanding of how change happens. The stakes are too high to not raise our game when it comes to social innovation. Wicked problems can be overcome but will require sophisticated theories of change able to account for the complexity and unpredictability of modern life. We offer think like a system, act like an entrepreneur as a contribution to this effort. This report is based on the following research: •• Desk based review of relevant literature; •• A series of structured interviews with participants in SBRI competitions; and •• An expert round table that brought together policymakers, commissioners, procurement experts and entrepreneurs to consider and develop initial findings.