1. What is the nature of social innovations?
2. What patterns can be identified in social innovations emerging at the local level?
3. How is the emergence and spread of social innovations related to urban governance? More precisely, which conditions and arrangements facilitate and hinders social innovation?

The authors explore these questions using different types of data and methods, and studying different contexts. They focus on innovations that aim at solving problems of the young unemployed, single parents and migrants, based on original research carried out during the WILCO project from 2010-2013. Research was carried out in 20 cities in 10 different European countries.

The book is available via Springer link open access.

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Die Stadt – insbesondere die Großstadt – galt schon immer als Ort gesellschaftlicher Innovation. Bereits Klassiker der Soziologie wie z.B. Georg Simmel, Emile Durkheim und später die Chicago School haben die Gemengelage aus Größe, Dichte und Heterogenität als Basis für die kulturelle und ökonomische Produktivität von (Groß-)Städten ausgemacht. Durch das Zusammentreffen von Fremden, ihrer unterschiedlichen Kulturen, Denk- und Lebensweisen, werden tradierte Ordnungen infrage gestellt, es entstehen Konflikte, aber auch Freiräume für Kreativität und Innovation.

In den letzen Jahren hat das Interesse an den urbanen Ressourcen für die Entfaltung innovativen Potenzials deutlich zugenommen. Zum einen haben Standortkonkurrenzen und die Krisenphänomene der letzten Jahrzehnte Städte zu einem Experimentierfeld für neue Politikansätze werden lassen. Zum anderen hat das Interesse an der urbanen Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft als Motor ökonomischen Wachstums zugenommen. Ob Krise oder Renaissance: Städte scheinen einen ganz besonderen Nährboden für soziale Innovationen zu bieten.

Die Beiträge des Themenschwerpunkts umfassen zunächst einmal Anschauungsbeispiele sehr verschiedener Art: aus der Sozialpolitik und Urbanistik oder auch der Umweltpolitik. Behandelt werden soziale Innovation in Form kleinteiliger Selbstorganisationsformen, soziale Unternehmen, sektor-übergreifende Netzwerke und Projekte sowie synthetisierende Ansätze zur Schaffung einer anderen kommunalen Klimapolitik im Sinne der Erarbeitung eines veränderten diskursiven Referenzrahmens.

Der Beitrag “Städtische Innovationsregime” von Sandro Cattacin und Patricia Naegeli stellt heraus, wie eng Innovation und Freiheit miteinander verknüpft sind. Er zeigt, warum insbesondere der urbane Raum in diesem Sinne als ein innovationsförderliches Setting angesehen werden kann. Vor diesem Hintergrund seien Ansätze einer die erforderlichen Freiräume einengenden „top-down-Steuerung“ sozialer Innovation zu kritisieren, wie sie sich von Seiten der EU andeuten.

Die Frage nach der Differenz von eher kleinteiligen sozialen Innovationen und dem Umgang mit innovativen Produkten in der Wirtschaft wird von Taco Brandsen, im Beitrag “Herausforderungen der Diffusion sozialer Innovation” herausgearbeitet. Projekte, Prozesse und Angebote sozialer Innovation sind stark geprägt durch die jeweiligen lokalen Kontexte, wenn sie sich entwickeln können sollen. Das setzt Konzepten der Diffusion nach dem Muster der Vermarktung erfolgreicher neuer Produkte (Franchising von sozialen Innovationen) Grenzen.

Mehr dazu im neuen Heft.

www.forschungsjournal.de

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Las desigualdades sociales siguen aumentando en Europa. Entre los más vulnerables se encuentran los jóvenes sin acceso al mercado de trabajo, madres solteras y sus hijos que se enfrentan a la exclusión social e inmigrantes sin permiso de trabajo or competencias lingüísticas. El proyecto WILCO examina las innovaciones participativas en el área de los servicios sociales (welfare) dirigidas a paliar la falta de viviendas apropiadas y accesibles, a ofrecer modalidades de cuidado al menor que sirvan de apoyo a las familias jóvenes y padres solteros así como la integración de los inmigrantes.

Keywords:
social inequality – labour – housing – changing family structures – migration

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Getting policy insights at a glance, discovering thought-provoking results and comparisons in Europe, checking quickly a methodology. This is why the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities (SSH) programme publishes policy briefs: to communicate research results in a structured way in only a few pages.

Download the policy brief here:
wilco_eu_policy_brief_032014

The post WILCO Policy Brief on European Commission website appeared first on Wilco Project.

Los contextos locales determinan las innovaciones en servicios sociales (welfare) que dan apoyo a los grupos estudiados por WILCO: jóvenes en busca de trabajo y vivienda accesible, jóvenes familias y padres solteros. inmigrantes jóvenes y mayores en 20 ciudades europeas. Además, determinan los niveles de participación de los ciudadanos en la forma que toman los servicios y las estructuras de vivienda. Este vídeo presenta alguna de las innovaciones que estudiadas en el marco del proyecto WILCO.

Keywords:
social innovation – governance – participation – collaboration – local context

The post Innovación Social en Europa appeared first on Wilco Project.

¿Cómo se puede hacer frente a los nuevos desafíos a nivel de servicios del bienestar (welfare) en Europa de manera innovadora? ¿Y cómo hacer que las innovaciones de abajo hacia arriba sean sostenibles a través de nuevos modelos de gobernanza? Esta parte del documental ilustra algunas experiencias de colaboraciones exitosas entre innovaciones sociales y sistemas locales de bienestar.

Keywords:
social innovation – governance – participation – collaboration – local context

The post Gobernanza de la innovación en Europa appeared first on Wilco Project.

On June 5, 2014, four international research projects funded by the European Commission under the call “Local Welfare Systems Favouring social Cohesion” – COPE, FLOWS, LOCALISE and WILCO – will present their policy-relevant findings to an audience of policy-makers, researchers, and interested others in Brussels. The aim of the conference is to fuel a constructive dialogue between practitioners and researchers on the following issues:

How do local active inclusion policies shape the life courses of beneficiaries? (COPE)

• How do local welfare systems support women’s labour market participation? (FLOWS)

• How do different institutional contexts influence local activation policies? (LOCALISE)

• How do local welfare systems favour cohesion through social innovation? (WILCO)

Taco Brandsen will discuss the results of the research project “Welfare Innovations at the Local Level in Favour of Cohesion” (WILCO), which
show how social innovations either emerge and flourish, or struggle and fail. He will reflect on the sustainability and diffusion of social
innovations, on their link to urban policy and on the implications of the findings for policymakers.

Adalbert Evers’ presentation  will concentrate on presenting innovative hallmarks in the cities and policy fields WILCO studied and poliy conclusions to be drawn from that. There are recurrent patterns of innovative approaches and instruments concerning ways to adress users, local organisational forms and self governance of innovative attempts, modes of working and financing, and rules &benefits. Hence innovations are not only special solutions for special groups and places but entail hints concening the direction of development of a future culture of social services. Public authorities should therefore develop some consent about what they find “innovative” and “useful”, strengthening such points as criteria for service design, development and support throughout.

All conference presentations are available for download:

Introduction
Brandsen
Evers
Heidenreich
Graziano
Jensen
Jessoula

The conference programme and more information on the conference venue
etc. can be found here: Flyer-FP7_Policy-Conference

Participation in the conference is free of charge, but registration is
required. To register for the conference, please e-mail Kerstin Zemke
(Kerstin.zemke@uni-oldenburg.de) until 15 May 2014.

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The book provides an analysis of social and economic transformations driving the emergence of new social risks in European cities in the last two decades, following three research questions: First, what are the main factors and mechanisms contributing to the rise of social vulnerability in urban contexts? Second, what are the material conditions and coping strategies adopted by vulnerable groups to deal with these risks? And, finally, what is the role played by local welfare systems in times of welfare retrenchment at the national level?

The focus of the book is on urban contexts, as it is in cities that most of the new social risks are concentrated and that must  respond to the most dramatic tensions in times of austerity with welfare policy adjustments. Case studies and emprical investigation focus on the areas of youth unemployment, single mothers and migrants, from Stockholm to Zagreb, from Pamplona to Warsaw and inbetween.

The book was published by Macmillan in 2014.

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To identify innovative practices in European cities and the factors that make them emerge and spread;

To set them against the context of current social problems and urban policies;

To make recommendations how to encourage local social innovation.

The Final report outlines findings with regards to emerging social welfare innovations; social exclusion and vulnerability; to urban welfare governance. It draws conclusions about sustainability and diffusion of social innovations and makes recommendations for EU-funded research on social innovation.

You can download the WILCO final report here.

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This city report maps the problems of social inequality and cohesion at the local level, as the background for the research on local social innovations in the subsequent part of the project. The report includes

• (1) an analysis of the main characteristics and trends of the local labour market (main sectors, employment and unemployment levels, groups of population mainly affected by long-term unemployment);
• (2) an analysis of demographic structure of the population and of the trends taking place in the preceding ten years (proportion of the elderly, fertility and natality rates, proportion of immigrants and their distribution in the urban territory, etc.);
• (3) an analysis of the housing market, with special attention to critical situations such as overcrowding, difficult affordability, evictions, homelessness;
• (4) an analysis of migration trends, of migrants’ flows into the city, of the composition of migrant population, its features, changes and possible risks of exclusion and segregation.

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