January 16, 2013
January 23, 2013
March 13, 2013
The Robert B. Zajonc Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw,
Poland

Event Descriptions

The Polish team (Professor Renata Siemieńska, Dr Anna Domaradzka and Dr Ilona Matysiak) organized 3 meetings, each at the University of Warsaw, in spring 2013. Each meeting lasted about 3 hours and was attended by about 30 people. The audience was composed of academics, representatives of Warsaw public administration and Warsaw council, NGOs, and beneficiaries of some services. Students of sociology who took part in the 1 year seminar presented the WILCO findings and also took part in the discussions following the presentations.

1. The January 16, 2013 meeting was devoted to the presentation and discussion of results of our research concerning:

• the situation of immigrants with special focus on Warsaw and Płock, their access to benefits offered by central and local governments like financial support, education, housing, work as well as support of NGOs, individual initiatives and the role of existing formal and informal networks;
•  problems of housing in the two cities – housing policy of central and local governments in the area;
• the interviews with beneficiaries, members of local councils, NGOs, representatives of local offices, etc., public discourse in local and central media, documents, etc., which were the basis for the summarizing presentations.

2. The January 23, 2013 meeting was devoted to the presentation and discussion of results of our research concerning:

• care of children (and seniors) in different types of families in the two cities. Policy of central and local governments in the area;
• the situation of unemployed people in the two cities (with special focus on the young generation) and activities addressed to the group which are expected to prevent its social exclusion; policy of central and local governments in the area;
• the interviews with beneficiaries of public and private services, members of local councils, NGOs, representatives of local offices, etc., public discourse in local and central media, documents, etc., which were the basis for the summarizing presentations.

3. The March 13, 2013 meeting was devoted to the presentation and discussion of results of our research concerning:

• social policy in the area of housing in Warsaw – main challenges for local administration, recent policy changes and planned reforms
• tenants rights and responsibilities
• problems associated with access to housing in Polish cities
• policies toward migrants – mechanisms for integration of migrant population in Warsaw
• migrants’ access to housing
• innovative mechanisms of labour market activisation of women

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October 30th, 2013
University of Geneva,
Switzerland

Event Description

The local diffusion event on the results of the WILCO project in Geneva was held on the 30th of October 2013. The Swiss team invited local representatives of the Geneva administration, political institutions and civil society for a return of results. In the main building of the University, we presented our results on the orientations and innovations of the local welfare system and discussed them with our field partners.

First, Patricia Naegeli presented the context of the WILCO project and our methodology. Then Sandro Cattacin quickly summarized the Swiss context regarding social policy and the role of the local level, prior to presenting the one on Geneva. What we consider as distinctive in Geneva is the consensus on the necessity of a strong local welfare state, based on values such as humanism, collective solidarity, individual responsibility and equity. Globally, the social sector is seen as distinct from other public sectors. Furthermore, we see this sector as quite affected by ideologies.

The second Swiss case studied by WILCO was presented by Maxime Felder. He summarized the findings on the Bern local welfare system. Partly due to federalism and the linguistic division, Bern features a quite different context than Geneva. Sandro Cattacin concluded the presentation with a comparative look on the twenty cities studied by the WILCO teams. He proposed a classification of the cities in four categories (or regimes). As we expected, this classification provoked reactions in the audience and led to a collective discussion.

The fifteen participants, representing the municipal administration and political institutions, the civil society and the media, discussed the future orientations of the local welfare state. The main debate concerned the classification. Some of the participants supported our analysis and some did not. The latter considered that Geneva welfare state is not guaranteed and therefore that the regime cannot be described as making social problems a priority of the State. The discussion continued after the presentation with an aperitif.

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November 6th, 2013
Käfigturm, Bern Switzerland

Event Description

The Swiss WILCO team invited local representatives of Bern administration, political institutions and civil society for a return of results. In the beautiful medieval tower « Käfigturm » located in the old city of Bern which is hosting the Political Forum of the Confederation, we presented our results on orientations and innovations of the Bern municipial welfare system. Since not all of our guests had participated in our interviews or focus group, we first presented the outline of the WILCO project. Then Sandro Cattacin quickly summarized the Swiss context regarding social policy and the role of the local level. He continued with the results of our research on the other Swiss case-study: Geneva. While only 150 kilometers away, Geneva and Bern have very distinct contexts. A first reason is federalism: cantons have numerous prerogatives regarding social policy. A second reason is the linguistic division. Bern represents the east and north German-speaking Switzerland while Geneva is on the border with France, in the French-speaking south-west of Switzerland. We presented more extensively our findings on Bern. In our perspective, Bern can be described as a «regime of innovation». A distinct consensus can be observed among the two leading coalitions: the social democratic one and the liberal one. Both have a strong focus on growth, and agree on a rather supportive welfare system. This consensus allows the Bern administration to implement innovations oriented towards what authors called an «activating social investment agenda». Our studies of values and orientations as well as the case studies of three selected social innovation show a clear trend towards a social investment perspective and towards «activation» as a guiding principle.

Sandro Cattacin concluded the presentation with a comparative look at the twenty cities studied by WILCO teams. He proposed a classification of the cities in four categories (or regimes). This classification raised a lot of questions in the audience and was a perfect opening for a collective discussion. The variety of positions represented in the audience led to an interesting talk on the future of the local welfare state in Bern. The discussion continued after the conclusion of the presentation, with a glass of Genevan wine.

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May 13^th, 2013
Warsaw University
Warsaw, Poland

Event Description

The objective of the WILCO grassroots conference titled “Social innovations in the welfare policy of the cities and activity of the third sector – as the means of counteracting/ prevention of social exclusion” was to present the results of research conducted within the framework of the WILCO project.

The panel discussion was dedicated to the subject of “Experience in implementation of innovative solutions of the local authorities and NGOs of Warsaw and Płock, aimed at counteracting and preventing social exclusion”.

Invitated were members of the Polish Parliament, representatives of the central and local administration, NGOs and the scientific community working on social exclusion.

The key speakers of the conference included:

• Agnieszka Kozłowska-Rajewicz, The Secretary of State, Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Treatment;
• Professor Taco Brandsen, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, coordinator of the WILCO project;
• Professor Annette Zimmer, Münster University, Germany.
• Professor Renata Siemieńska, University of Warsaw, Academy of Special Education, supervisor of the Polish part of the WILCO project

The conference programme
12:00–12:30 Opening of the conference
• Agnieszka Kozłowska-Rajewicz, Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Treatment
• Professor Renata Siemieńska, University of Warsaw, Academy of Special Education, supervisor of the Polish part of the WILCO project

12:30–13:00 Assumptions, objectives, achievement of the international WILCO project. Local welfare policy innovations for cohesion, professor Taco Brandsen, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, coordinator of the WILCO project

13:00–13:30 The economic crisis and local initiatives of the social policy to counteract social exclusion in Germany, professor Annette Zimmer, Münster University, Germany

13:30–14:00 Discussion

14:00–14:45 Lunch

14:45–15:30 Are there specific problems and means to counteract social exclusion in Poland? professor Renata Siemieńska, Anna Domaradzka, Ph.D, Ilona Matysiak, Ph.D, R.B. Zajonc Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw

15:30–16:45 Panel discussion: Experience in implementation of solutions proposed by local authorities and NGOs of Warsaw and Płock to counteract and prevent social exclusion
• Anna Anuczak, Monopol Warszawski Association
• Roberto Cobas Avivar, social worker cooperating with tenant movement
• Małgorzata Falis, president of „Moms’ Cooperative” (Warsaw)
• Beata Puda, president of Centrum Innowacji Społeczeństwa Informacyjnego (Płock)
• Iwona Tandecka, president of the Management Board of the Grant Fund for Płock
• Magdalena Wojno, Center for Social Communication of the capital city of Warsaw

16:45–17:00 Discussion

17:00–17:10 Summary of the conference, professor Renata Siemieńska.

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Dover District Council’s Office
22 January, 2014

Event Description

Twelve of the forty or so elected District Councillors attended the WILCO Dover grassroots event, as did the Chief Executive. The participants spanned the political spectrum.

Following a short presentation by Dr Lavinia Mitton from the UK WILCO team we hosted a roundtable on the theme of ‘Supporting social innovation at the local level: Ways of fostering active participation by the public‘. This topic is of practical interest to Dover local policy-makers who want to explore ways to fill the gaps in services left by austerity cuts with initiatives to help local communities do things for themselves. It is also of concern to local decision-makers who believe in engaging the public as a democratic principle.

Feedback from the event was positive. Councillors said they enjoyed getting together outside of a busy meeting to discuss some big ideas and a number expressed an interest in participating in future research with the UK WILCO team.

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Event Description
The event was organised with the support of the Third Sector Research Centre, at the University of Birmingham http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/. Peter Alcock (University of Birmingham) provided an introduction and an overview of the project was presented by Jeremy Kendall (University of Kent).

Nadia Brookes (University of Kent) talked about the findings so far for Birmingham to check their relevance. Nadia presented critical factors in the local environment influencing innovation and innovation examples. A discussion took place about whether there would be a change in focus now, particularly around the labour market, to prevention and dealing with precarious employment and the transition to work for young people rather than targeting the long-term unemployed given that there are less resources available. There was also a debate about whether the consenus demonstrated through WILCO interviews and documentation really existed amongst local councillors.

Lavinia Mitton (University of Kent) presented an innovation example from the other UK site in Dover, the Aylesham Community Project. The question was posed of what happens when the innovation ‘champion’ or charismatic community leader has to step away and the issues this brings for sustainability. A discussion took place about the issue of projects remaining small scale or scaling up and the possibility of losing their ‘essence’.

Marie Nordfeldt (Ersta Skondal University, Stockholm) from the WILCO team in Sweden presented background to local welfare in Sweden and examples of innovations from Malmo and Stockholm. Marie talked about how the source of innovation was not always obvious. Birmingham is already involved in some comparator work with Sweden through the Transnet initiative and so participants were interested to hear about developments there.

The grassroots event ended with a discussion about how the results of the project could best be utilised. At a city level it was suggested that there would be interest in outputs from the project and that there were various platforms to link into, particularly through the local Social Inclusion Process.

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Where: Nijmegen, Netherlands
When: January 9, 2014

Event Description

On Thursday January the 9th, 2014, the Dutch WILCO team held its second grassroots event.

The event focused on the topic of co-production, one of the most interesting themes coming out of the WILCO research. Co-production involves citizens actively engaged with professional organisations to improve their personal situation, rather than being reduced to passive recipients. This is central, for instance, to the Nijmegen work corporations described in the WILCO reports, which involve collaboration with the long-term employed.

Participants consisted of professionals and managers from the care, welfare and employment fields. Discussion topics included how to increase the participation of socially vulnerable people and how to balance the requirements of professional organisations and the expectations of active citizens.

The seminar was co-organised by the WILCO project and the Dutch Association for Public Administration.

Programme

14.00 Word of welcome by Taco Brandsen (Radboud University Nijmegen)
14.05 Presentations by:
- Werner van der Wiel (manager work corporation Wijk- en Woningservice, 2Switch)
- Conrad Savy (chair Hobbycentrum de Nonnendaal & initiatiefnemer De Wijkfabriek)
- Jan Bannink (project manager social care, neighbourhood teams)

Questions and discussion

• 15.15 Break
• 15.30 Comments by Joost Fledderus (Radboud University Nijmegen) & Annica Brummel (Tandem)

Discussion

• 16.30 Cocktail
• 17.00 Conclusion

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January 24, 2014
9.45am – 1pm
Sala Piamarta,
Via San Faustino, Brescia

Event Description

The event is titled “The City between Vulnerability and Innovation” and will address policy-makers, scholars, civil society activists and the interested public.

Click below for the programme (in Italian):

WILCO_brescia-seminario

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14th of January 2014
Malmö, Sweden

Event Description

The event was organised in cooperation with a new network that Lund University is currently forming, aiming to develop research and support infrastructure for social innovation (LUSIC – Lund University Social Innovation). We held two Wilco-seminars with around 60 participants, representing public and private sectors, civil society, and universities.

The post WILCO stakeholder meeting in Malmö appeared first on Wilco Project.

WHERE?
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Egipcíaques, 15
08001 Barcelona

PROGRAM:

• 9:30 Welcome and Introduction to the Seminar
  WILCO Team Members
• 10:00 Challenges for Social Innovation
  Prof. Teresa Montagut (UB)
• 10:30 An innovative project in Sweden
  Dr Ola Segnestam (Ersta Sköndal University)
  Open discussion
• 11:30 Coffee Break
• 12:00 An innovative project in Germany
  Prof. Annette Zimmer (Münster University)
• 12.30 An innovative project in Pamplona
  Dr. Manuel Aguilar (UB)
• 13:00 Open discussion
• 13:45 Closing of the seminar

Event Description

The local level allows to define a specific social welfare system. The various actors involved (politicians, professionals, organizations or civil society) along with the dynamics and the institutional inertia, are capital for explaining and thus determining its own development.

Given the current crisis, it is now more important than ever to rethink how social needs are addressed. The project WILCO organizes the seminar “Innovating in times of crisis” and invites all people and institutions involved in social welfare. The seminar aims to be a meeting point for reflecting on the challenges of social innovation and, simultaneously, to find a place to know some of the innovative projects being undertaken in other cities Europe.

The event is open to the public although it is specifically aimed at politicians, experts, professionals, volunteers, researchers, and students. Registration to the event is no longer possible due to completion of all the available spaces.

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