Public universities increasingly act as facilitators of social innovation by leveraging their knowledge infrastructure and community engagement capabilities. Through living labs and makerspaces, universities integrate teaching, research, and civic missions to create co-creation platforms that empower students, researchers, and local communities. These platforms embrace the principles of experimentation, inclusivity, and responsiveness, enabling collaborative problem-solving that transcends traditional academic boundaries. Living labs foster real-time innovation by embedding research into local contexts and stakeholder participation, while makerspaces democratise access to tools, skills, and design thinking for grassroots-level prototyping and creativity. Two cases from a Malaysian public university demonstrate how university-based initiatives evolved into socially responsive innovation ecosystems. These cases illustrate how faculty-student collaboration, interdisciplinary approaches, and community partnerships reframe universities as hubs of social transformation. The discussion underscores the potential of higher education institutions to play a catalytic role in building resilient, place-based solutions and nurturing future changemakers.