Social innovation for social cohesion

Abstract

In light of the major challenges facing societies and political and social systems in Europe, there is an increasing focus on micro-scale social innovations. But what can such innovations contribute? How can they best be understood? And how can a positive interaction between these forms of social innovation and public policies for reform be ensured? The EU-funded international research project, 'Welfare Innovations at the Local Level in Favour of Cohesion' (WILCO) aimed to explore how social innovations can help political actors as well as organisations and movements from civil society in finding better coping strategies with respect to social inclusion. The project analysed both specific social innovations and the ways in which they are taken up by established local welfare systems. This remit implied studying both sides of the social innovation phenomenon: first the projects that represent social innovation; second, the developments that have been set in train within established welfare systems as a consequence.