Digital technologies and the internet play an increasingly important role in how social innovation happens. We call this phenomenon digital social innovation (DSI) and created a network map that we're inviting you to join.

But what do we really mean by the term DSI? Peter Baeck and Alice Casey take a closer look at the tools and platforms you use to help you start your own digital social innovation project or get involved in those that others have already begun.

As part of our DSI research project, we have been looking across Europe, and beyond, to find out more about how people are using digital technology to make a social impact. We’re inviting people involved in creating these new social innovations to map their activities over at our open data community map www.digitalsocial.eu. We hope this will give everyone working on digital social innovation more exposure and help funders and researchers to shape their work to support this exciting field.

Below, we highlight our top 11 DSI trends to watch. Although you can read about each one separately, many of the most exciting innovations come from combining several of these trends to form entirely new systems. We’d love to gather more examples, so please add those you may have to our crowdmap.