Guide to Research and Innovation Strategies for Smart Specialisation

Social innovation
Why should social innovation be part of smart specialisation?
Social innovation is important for regional development, as it can create new business
opportunities, provide new perspectives to citizens, and help the modernisation of the public
sector. It can also be a vehicle for making policies more responsive to social change and to
encourage and support innovative social enterprises. 'Social innovations are innovations that
are social in both their ends and their means. Specifically, we define social innovations as new
ideas (products, services and models) that simultaneously meet social needs (more effectively
than alternatives) and create new social relationships or collaborations. In other words, they
are innovations that are both good for society and enhance society’s capacity to act.' 164
Social innovation is about developing new forms of organisation and interactions to respond
to social/societal issues. They address a social demand or need (e.g. elder care), contribute to
addressing a societal challenge (ageing society) and, through their process dimension (e.g. the
active engagement of the elder, new services) they contribute to reshaping society in the
direction of participation, empowerment, co-creation and learning.
For these reasons social innovations offer a way to tackle societal challenges when the market
and public sector do not respond effectively to the social needs. They also contribute
positively to diminish the innovation divide by including end users (including disadvantaged
groups) and stakeholders into innovation processes, promoting inclusive growth. Therefore,
they are a relevant rationale to have in mind while designing innovation strategies for smart
specialisation.
Social innovators can come from all walks of life. Social innovations can be developed by
private, public and third sectors, and should involve households and citizens, i.e. the
quadruple helix, and can be implemented at national, regional and local level.
Barriers and Challenges
Social innovation is a relatively new concept for which a theoretical framework is being
developed. There is a risk of it being hampered by insufficient knowledge, limited support of
grass roots, social enterprise and social entrepreneurship activities, poor diffusion and little
scale-up of good practices, and poor methods of impact evaluation. The context for
developing social innovations is very different across European countries' welfare regimes
(i.e. the relative role of state, market, family).
Social innovation challenges traditional structures, forms of organisation and power relations,
which are difficult and slow to change. New forms of engaging with employees, end-users or
citizens, NGOs and local communities, making better use of their innovation potential
through e.g. co-creation, workplace innovation or quadruple helix models (including civil
society), can be powerful tools for innovation but require considerable mentality change.
Access to finance can also constitute a barrier. For example, social enterprises may not have
as easy an access to finance from banks as other enterprises. Projects need to be encouraged to
164 Social Innovation Exchange and Young Foundation 2010 Study on social innovation for BEPA.
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