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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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.

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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January 24th 2014
Sala Piamarta, Via San Faustino 70
Brescia

Event Description

The WILCO Brescia team organised a public seminar in collaboration with the Brescia City Council Department for Social Services and Family Policies. The title of the seminar was: “Cities between vulnerability and innovation. Elements for a discussion stemming from a European research“. Social assistants and social workers of the Municipality of Brescia were invited to assist the seminar as a training occasion.

The focus of the seminar was manifold:

• First, objectives, methodology and steps of the research project were presented.

• Second, comparative research results from WP3 were presented, with particular reference to labour and housing markets and policies. The case of Brescia, a Southern European city with segmented social policies, was presented in the context of the other European 19 cities involved in the research, and of their respective national welfare system.

• Third, research results from WP5, and particularly cases of social innovation in The Netherlands, were offered as examples from other contexts. Francesca Broersma presented three cases of local innovation: “BOOT – Neighbourhood Stores for Education, Research and Talent Development” and “Neighbourhood Mothers Catering” in Amsterdam, and the “Work corporations” in Nijmegen. Analysis emphasised the relation between universities and neighbourhoods, in order to identify services that are really needed at the very local level (for BOOT); the collaboration between public and private actors; the focus on people’s competences, instead of their lacunae; the commercial approach of some of the projects (the objective to make a profit, to be reinvested in the projects themselves) in order to guarantee their sustainability and continuity in time.

• Fourth, representatives of the bodies carrying out the activities selected as local innovation case studies were invited to a roundtable to discuss about facts, criticism and possible perspectives of innovation (see the list in the programme below). The consequences of the crisis in the local area were discussed, particularly how the loss of jobs of breadwinners has provoked in some cases the loss of the family dwelling as well, putting higher pressure on the local housing policies. Another consequence is related to the fact that many young people are unemployed and still live with their parents, who cannot correspond to their high expectations in terms of living standards. The presence of many innovations in local programs in the Brescia area was underlined, but of very small size and highly fragmented, also because of the narcissism of local actors. The need to overcome the discouragement of both individuals and organizations was highlighted. The drastic reduction of resources was said to call for innovation in the “production of welfare”, in order to reduce the cost of welfare services without reducing their quality. In particular, bureaucratic regulation should be updated and simplified. The role of the Municipality will increasingly be one of coordination rather than of direct production.

• Finally, the implications in terms of social investment were recalled, and the need for the development of “active social policies” was underlined.

PROGRAMME
9:45 Introduction, Costanzo Ranci, Polytechnic of Milan
10:00 Social vulnerability in European cities: labour market and access to housing, Stefania Sabatinelli and Giuliana Costa, Polytechnic of Milan
11:00 Social innovation in European cities. Ideas from the Netherlands, Francesca Broersma, Radboud University Nijmegen
11:30 Roundtable: Social innovation in Brescia: experiences, criticalities, perspectives. Chair: Costanzo Ranci, Polytechnic of Milan. Interventions of: Felice Scalvini, City Councillor of Brescia for Policies for the Family, the Person, the Health; Achille Gasparotti, Province of Brescia; Alessandro Augelli, Informagiovani and Cooperativa Il Calabrone; Michele Bordin, Associazione Bimbo Chiama Bimbo; Manuela Archetti, Immobiliare Sociale Bresciana.
12:30 Discussion

RESOURCES

Four power point presentations delivered in Italian are available for download as pdf:

WILCO Brescia 1 welfare and cohesion 53KB

WILCO Brescia 2 labour market 442KB

WILCO Brescia 3 housing 123KB

WILCO Brescia 4 housing netherlands 98KB

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This is the final programme

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Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers,
Paris, France
15 November, 2013

Event Description

WILCO researcher Laurent Fraisse presented some of the outputs of the WILCO research on social innovation in the local governance of welfare services during a special meeting in Paris attended by academic and grassroots participants. Organized at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (Cnam) in partnership with the Sciences, Innovation and Technical in Society Research Programme (IFRIS), a national network of excellence on innovation, the Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Economic Sociology (LISE) and the popular university of the Cnam, around forty participants joined the debate.

As first speaker, Jean-Louis Laville, Professor of Sociology at Cnam, looked at the conceptual contribution of research sciences and technologies in the analysis of innovation processes with a social innovation perspective. He underlined the progressive integration of the organizational, cognitive and social networking dimensions within the conceptualization of technological innovations. Despite inspiring analogies, social innovation initiatives have their own autonomous dynamics, such as explicit societal goals, the emergence of new innovators beyond the business milieu, diffusion mechanisms not reduced to market selection, general and specific aspects related to social changes, human needs and even social movements. He concluded by distinguishing solidarity-based initiatives that contribute to making modern society more democratic and participative and social entrepreneurship innovations as a component of the transformation of post-crisis capitalism.

On the basis of case studies in Nantes and Lille, Laurent Fraisse discussed to what extent local public policies are able to integrate the social innovation referential. He stressed the fact that social innovation discourse and action are no longer the monopoly of civil society networks and grassroots practices. Some local authorities have partly integrated social innovation in certain local public action frameworks. Several initiatives presented in WILCO reports were launched by the Lille and Nantes municipalities. This new context creates an ambivalence in the ability of social innovation to transform local social policies. On the one hand, a number of new policies, such as social and solidarity-based policies, and certain local housing and childcare programmes in Nantes and Lille create an enabling environment for experimental strategies and innovative practices. But these institutional niches may coexist with strong processes for rationalizing welfare policies dominated by quantitative and cost efficiency objectives. Between the local political will to support grassroots initiatives and social innovation as a way to restructure local social policies, the meaning of social innovations in a context of economic austerity and social spending cutbacks may be interpreted very differently at the local level.

Pierre-Benoit Joly, Director of IFRIS introduced the discussion, emphasizing that the discourse on and interest in social innovation at the European level is a new opportunity for changing the dominant representations on innovation despite the residual aspect of many initiatives. Debate with grassroots practitioners focused on the diffusion of social innovation beyond a specific niche of activities, organizations or processes. Recognizing emblematic practices is necessary but not sufficient for ensuring dissemination in other local contexts. Testimonies from social entrepreneurs confirmed the importance of local and sectorial contingencies and institutional resistance. Which codified processes of diffusion are relevant while avoiding undermining the major innovative aspects? This led to an examination of the process of institutionalization of social innovation. Some participants wondered to what extent recognition in law as discussed by the national parliament in the context of the Social and Solidarity Act would facilitate various innovative social dynamics or, on the contrary, limit the kinds of practices that underpin this notion.

The evaluation of the outputs and impacts of social innovations were also at the heart of the discussion. Researchers could not be satisfied with an assessment of the process of social innovation disconnected from the outputs. Bringing a credible answer to this method is a common challenge shared with all kinds of innovation processes characterized by a certain degree of risk and uncertainty on outputs, which is not always well appreciated by public investors.

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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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