Can Social Innovation Make a Change in European and Mediterranean Marginalized Areas? Social Innovation Impact Assessment in Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry, and Rural Development

Elisa Ravazzoli,David Miller,Thomas Streifeneder,Elena Pisani,Mariana Melnykovych,Antonio Lopolito,Arbia Labidi,Valentino Marini Govigli,Antonio Baselice,Cristina Dalla Torre,Carla Barlagne,Maria Nijnik,Marijke Dijskhoorn-Dekker,Manfred Perlik,Achilleas Vassilopoulos,Simo Sarkki,Laura Secco,Mohammed Bengoumi,Phoebe Koundouri,Riccardo Da Re,Elena Górriz‐Mifsud ,N.b.p Polman

doi:10.3390/su13041823

Abstract

Social innovation (SI) impacts are long-term changes that affect different dimensions of territorial capital (i.e., economy, society, environment, governance) for the territory in which SI occurs. Yet, systematic empirical evidence and theoretically sound assessments of the impacts of SI are scarce. This paper aims to fill the gap and assess the different aspects of SI’s impacts in European and Mediterranean areas that are characterized by marginalization processes. To assess the impacts of SI in marginalized areas, we use the evaluation framework developed within the Social Innovation in Marginalized Rural Areas (SIMRA) Horizon 2020 project and apply it to nine SI initiatives related to the fields of agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and rural development. Our findings show that SI produces cross-sectoral (societal, economic, environmental, and governmental) and multi-level impacts (on individuals, community, and society), which have improved the societal well-being, and contributed to the reduction of certain forms of marginality, mainly inside the territory in which SI occurred.

Highlights

The concept of social innovation (SI) is an emerging one, both in academia and in practice fields
In this article we extend the work done in the EU Horizon 2020 project, Social Innovation in Marginalized Rural Areas (SIMRA), which developed analytical tools to understand
We begin by clarifying the concept of Social innovation (SI), the SI impacts and their related aspects (Section 2); we present the framework used in this paper for the assessment of the impacts of SI initiatives (Section 3); we introduce the methods for the analysis of the data and the empirical material (Section 4); we present the results of the assessment (Section 5) and discuss the findings (Section 6); we provide some concluding remarks (Section 7)

Summary

Introduction

The concept of social innovation (SI) is an emerging one, both in academia and in practice fields. SI refers to both a process of the transformation of social practices (i.e., attitudes, behaviors, networks of collaboration) and to the outcomes in terms of new products and services (i.e., novel ideas, models, services, and new organizational forms). Both processes and outcomes seek to address complex challenges, and to respond to needs that the market or the public sector are not able to address adequately [1,2] or are seeking alternatives to existing institutions [3,4,5]. And environmentally responsible businesses and SIs can determine changes to different dimensions of territorial capital, for example, strengthening community empowerment, bridging the social divide, developing fair and sustainable food chains, encouraging environmental protection, promoting human and ecological sustainability

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion