The Social Innovation Manual

The reference work

The Social Innovation Manual is the complete reference work for the Social Innovation framework. It covers the methodology, the practitioner’s role, the management of innovation work, and the supporting theoretical foundations.

Read it cover to cover to internalise the framework. Use it as a desk reference once you’re working with it. Cite it in academic and professional work. Adapt it for your own teaching or organisational training.

What’s in the manual

The manual is organised around the framework cycle:

• Part I — Foundations. What social innovation is, where it came from, and how it differs from adjacent fields. The ecosystem, financing models, and approaches to impact measurement.
• Part II — Managing innovation work. Innovation management methodology, institutional contexts, divergence and convergence in practice.
• Part III — Discover. Social context analysis. Stakeholder mapping. Tools for understanding environments and identifying core challenges.
• Part IV — Define. Converting situations into well-formed innovation challenges. Working with data and insight.
• Part V — Develop. Idea generation, solution design, success criteria, viable alternatives.
• Part VI — Deliver. Prototyping, testing, impact evaluation, performance monitoring, sustainability.

A real table of contents will appear here once the English edition is published.

Who this is for

Practitioners working in development, social innovation, public-sector innovation, CSR, or social entrepreneurship can use the manual as a reference for their day-to-day work.

Students studying development, social innovation, or related fields can use it as a textbook or supplementary reading.

Trainers can use it to design their own teaching, freely under the CC BY 4.0 license.

Organisations can use it for internal training, team alignment, or as part of their professional development programmes.

How to use this manual

For self-study toward SIPC certification. Read the manual cover to cover, then take the SIPC exam administered by certN. The exam is open-book — keep the manual with you during the exam.

For internal team training. Adapt sections for your team’s specific context. The CC BY 4.0 license permits remix and derivative works as long as ADP is credited as the source.

For classroom teaching. Use the manual as a textbook in university, training-institute, or workshop settings. No permission needed; attribution required.

As a day-to-day reference. Keep it on your desk. The cycle and its tools become more useful with repeated practice.

Submit feedback on the manual

The manual improves with practitioner feedback. Corrections, suggestions, and case examples are all welcome and reviewed by the editorial team.

Common questions about the Manual’s license, citation, and translations are answered in the FAQ.

License and how to cite

The Social Innovation Manual is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

This means you can:

• Share the manual freely in any format
• Adapt, remix, or build on it
• Use it commercially

As long as you:

• Credit ADP as the source
• Indicate if changes were made
• Don’t suggest ADP endorses your use

Alliance of Development Practitioners. (2026). The Social Innovation Manual (1st ed.). https://adp-international.org/social-innovation/manual/

Alliance of Development Practitioners. The Social Innovation Manual. 1st ed. Brussels: ADP, 2026. https://adp-international.org/social-innovation/manual/.