The Social Innovation Certificate empowers you to become a changemaker—someone who takes informed, intentional action to create positive cultural, social, environmental, or economic change. You’ll gain the tools and mindset to tackle complex challenges using creative, inclusive, and practical approaches.
Through this program, you’ll learn how to think differently, work across disciplines, and take action in ways that reflect values like sustainability, decolonization, and social justice. Whether you’re aiming for a career in non-profits, business, education, or public service—or you simply want to make a difference—this certificate helps you lead with purpose.
What you'll learn:
- Inclusive and transformative innovation frameworks
- Practices for decolonization, Indigenization, and sustainability
- Skills in systems thinking, collaboration, and futures building
Program highlights:
- 4 Innovation (INNV) courses + 15 elective credits – Check out which electives you can take.
- Apply your learning to your major or take it as a stand-alone certificate
- Grounded in UFV’s Íyáqáwtxw – House of Transformation values and UFVs Changemaker Principles:
- Inclusive Empowerment | Decolonization & Indigenization | Sustainable Futures | Reciprocity
Adding this certificate to a degree or taking it on its own allows you to craft a purpose-driven career making a difference in any industry sector. Faculty will provide career advising to help you match your social innovation skills to your career interests/goals.
You will graduate with:
- Relevant experience for your CV, hands-on learning, and a professional network
- A social innovation portfolio (which can be discipline/field-specific)
- Leadership, collaboration, and communication skills
- Mindsets for problem-solving, adaptability, and innovation
Examples of Social Innovation Career Pathways:
Climate & Environmental Justice
- Agriculture: Designing climate-smart food commons using permaculture, blockchain traceability, and community governance.
- Biology: Creating citizen science projects that monitor ecosystem health through Indigenous science and open data platforms.
- Geography: Developing climate justice dashboards that integrate Indigenous land-use data, community memory, and GIS.
- Global Development Studies: Launching climate resilience networks using community-led foresight and digital knowledge-sharing tools.
- Visual Arts: Co-creating public art installations that visualize community data around inequality and climate change.
Health, Wellness & Community Care
- Adult Education: Building mobile learning units for rural and remote areas using participatory design and open-source curricula.
- Nursing/Kinesiology: Designing culturally grounded wellness hubs that integrate movement, nutrition, and land-based healing.
- Psychology: Facilitating trauma-informed community design workshops for post-disaster urban planning.
- Sociology: Mapping social care networks and developing peer-to-peer resource sharing platforms in underserved neighbourhoods.
Tech, Data & AI for Good
- Computing Science: Building AI-powered accessibility tools that co-learn with disabled users and prioritize dignity and autonomy.
- Economics: Prototyping cooperative micro-investment platforms using blockchain for immigrant entrepreneurs.
- Physics/Engineering: Prototyping frugal innovation tools (e.g., clean water tech) co-designed with off-grid communities.
- Philosophy: Hosting AI ethics labs that bring together coders, ethicists, and community stakeholders to deliberate emerging dilemmas.
- Political Science: Launching civic tech platforms that increase transparency in municipal decision-making through crowdsourced input.
Culture, Storytelling & Narrative Change
- Criminology: Co-designing digital storytelling platforms with formerly incarcerated individuals to shift public narratives and inform policy reform.
- English/Literature: Designing narrative change initiatives that use speculative fiction to envision decolonized and sustainable futures.
- History: Developing immersive VR exhibits that retell local histories from multiple, previously marginalized perspectives.
- Media & Communications: Designing ethical digital campaigns to amplify youth-led climate and social justice movements.
Enterprise & Systems Innovation
Business: Designing circular economy business incubators that prioritize local makers, regenerative practices, and community wealth.
Open to both domestic and international students.
View the entrance requirements for the Social Innovation Certificate in the UFV Academic Calendar.
