Industrial culture as an agent of social innovation: reflections from Velenje, Slovenia

Abstract

Industrial towns are often framed as marginalized and less innovative compared with service-oriented urban agglomerations. Their specific trajectories create both opportunities and constraints for new concepts, such as social innovation. However, little is known about their innovative capacity in relation to societal and cultural norms and social capital. The objective of this article is therefore to analyse the capacity of an industrial town to generate social innovation on the case study of Velenje, Slovenia. By employing a concept of industrial culture and an interactive process of research and action with the local community, we try to link territorially embedded norms, values and social capital to producing past, present-day and possible future social innovations. Velenje can be described as ‘innovative milieu’ since many social innovations, strongly territorially and historically embedded, were developed in the town. The main drivers of these innovations seem to be socialist and industrial values, which largely persist in the modern era, also due to very engaged youth. The town‘s capacity to produce social innovation is further enhanced by a culture of collaboration. The article challenges contemporary notions of non-innovative (post-socialist) industrial towns and highlights the capability of industrial culture to unlock the local innovation potential.