Journal of the National Research University Higher School of Economics

This paper provides theoretical foundations for the existence of national social innovations systems (NSIS) and presents such a system with empirical data. Departing from the activities in France of Ashoka, a large and old service organization, which we label as knowledge-intensive social service (KISS), we build a large and robust social innovation network in France and argue that it represents a credible approximation of the country’s NSIS. On this basis, we find differences within the national innovation system (NIS). Indeed, the core of the NSIS involves very few actors emanating from manufacturing or technology-intensive industries, and the coordination between actors seems more bottom-up than in the NIS.