Food Production as a Niche Innovation in Higher Education
Institutions of higher education, which have historically responded to the cultural, economic, and technological needs of society, possess great potential for influencing societal transitions towards sustainability. Today, colleges and universities are experimenting with campus based social innovations that integrate infrastructure, operations, curriculum, research, and funding while communicating new ways of thinking within and outside of the campus community. Food production, for example, has created an integrating context for sustainability on campuses throughout the country and has been praised for its impact. This exploratory study examines the role of colleges and universities in facilitating the diffusion of campus based food production. Considering food production as a niche level innovation in higher education, we measure the success of this niche as determined by its potential to grow and facilitate the diffusion of innovative practices that influence larger transitions towards sustainability. The transition management (TM) framework is utilized to examine 281 examples of social innovation on college campuses collected from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education's (AASHE) Database of Campus Sustainability Case Studies and the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment Rating System (STARS) We find that while necessary processes for successful niche growth are present, the data provides less evidence of the conditions necessary for innovation diffusion.