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Social Innovation – Certificate

Quick Facts

• Credential: Certificate
• Duration: Four semesters
• Start Date: January, May, September
• Location: Abbotsford campus
• Cost: Tuition and fees

Features

• Can be completed alongside your main program
• Program eligible for financial aid

Program Description

The Social Innovation Certificate empowers individuals to become changemakers—individuals who take informed, intentional action to create positive cultural, social, environmental, or economic change. Participants will gain the tools and mindset necessary to tackle complex challenges using creative, inclusive, and practical approaches.

Through this program, learners will develop the ability to think differently, work across disciplines, and take action that embodies values such as sustainability, decolonization, and social justice. Whether pursuing a career in non-profits, business, education, or public service, or simply desiring to make a difference, this certificate equips students to lead with purpose.

Learning Outcomes

• Inclusive and transformative innovation frameworks
• Practices for decolonization, Indigenization, and sustainability
• Skills in systems thinking, collaboration, and futures building

Program Highlights

• Four Innovation (INNV) courses and 15 elective credits
• Allows application of learning to one's major or serves as a stand-alone certificate
• Grounded in UFV's Íyáqáwtxw – House of Transformation values and UFV's Changemaker Principles:
  • Inclusive Empowerment
  • Decolonization & Indigenization
  • Sustainable Futures
  • Reciprocity

Career Expectations

Adding this certificate to a degree or pursuing it independently prepares graduates for a purpose-driven career across various sectors. Faculty members offer career advising to assist in aligning social innovation skills with individual career interests and goals.

Graduates will possess:

• Relevant experience for their CV, hands-on learning, and a professional network
• A social innovation portfolio, which may be discipline or 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 neighborhoods.

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, such as clean water technology, in collaboration with off-grid communities.
• Philosophy: Hosting AI ethics labs that bring together coders, ethicists, and community stakeholders to deliberate on 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 utilizing speculative fiction to envision decolonized and sustainable futures.
• History: Developing immersive virtual reality 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.

Entrance Requirements

Refer to the entrance requirements for the Social Innovation certificate program in the UFV Academic Calendar.

International Student Admissions

This program is open for international students.

Upgrading Options

Students who do not meet the entrance requirements may complete upgrading to satisfy prerequisites for university-level courses. Prospective students are advised to seek assistance from the Future Students office for more information on upgrading options. Current or returning students should connect with the appropriate advising area based on the level of upgrading required:

• University-level upgrading (100 level and above): Qualifying Studies Advisor
• High school equivalent courses (below 100 level): Upgrading Advisor