Success factors of social innovations by a community-based learning course (CBLC)

This is the success story of a community-based learning course (CBLC) project addressing the concerns of the international community of students and staff of Wageningen University and Research Centre (WageningenUR). A joint effort of this community, WageningenUR and social entrepreneurs resulted in social innovations for this community: an informative website and film about the available healthcare, explaining cultural differences. The film had 1,671 views (at 28-02-2014) and became part of the introduction programme of WageningenUR. At WageningenUR every year over 150 teams execute a ‘real-life’ project in the CBL course ‘Academic Consultancy Training’. In this course advanced Master students execute assignments commissioned by external commissioners in multidisciplinary and multicultural teams. What can be learned from this particular case of CBLC that successfully resulted in social innovations? The following factors contributed to the results of this CBLC project: 1) Collaboration and/or involvement of stakeholders in the different steps, before, during and after the CBLC project 2) Every step fitted within an interest or existing initiative of stakeholders involved 3) The CBLC team made the stories of international students about healthcare explicit 4) The stories reached the WageningenUR board 5) The CBLC team proposed constructive recommendations which supported follow-up action 6) The social action-oriented commissioner with network enabled follow-up action 7) The commissioner discussed sensitive issues. Lessons learned for the selection and guidance of future CBLC projects: 1) This case confirms the importance of attention for stakeholder involvement in the projects; 2) Projects in which stories of a community are made explicit, can be powerful in raising concern for this community; 3) Importance of formulation of constructive action-oriented recommendations; 4) Probe potential commissioners about how they expect they will share and use the results within their network.