Local forms of social innovation and welfare policies: results of the ImPRovE and WILCO projects
Antwerp, 8 April 2014, 10:00 am-12:00 pm
Chair: Prof. dr. Stijn Oosterlynck (University of Antwerp)
Abstract:
This session is concerned with local forms of social innovation and their complex relationships to macro-level welfare policies in different types of welfare systems in Europe. Working from the assumption that there is potential for mutual enrichment between social innovation and welfare policies, the two presentations in this session will explore the various dimensions of their interrelationships and potential through a broad and international range of case studies of social innovation that address diverse forms of social exclusion. These case studies are drawn from two EU-funded collaborative research projects on local projects of social innovation, namely ImPRovE and WILCO. In the first presentation the ImPRovE researchers Florian Wukovitsch, Tatiana Sarius, Pieter Cools and Fabio Colombo will analyze the governance challenges met by local forms of social innovation in different types of welfare states based on case studies in Italy, Austria and Belgium. They will discuss amongst others governance challenges such as uneven access to innovative services, the fragmentation of the welfare mix and the problem of upscaling social innovations.
The second presentation by Adalbert Evers of the WILCO project will deal with local social innovations that aim to increase social cohesion. WILCO studied local social innovations and policy developments in twenty European cities dealing with social inclusion challenges. In the presentation, the approach used by WILCO researchers for defining and studying local social innovations transnationally will be introduced. Secondly, the presentation will outline the recurrent features and shared patterns found in a range of local projects that make an innovative difference to the environment and traditions of given welfare systems and services. Finally, some questions will be raised concerning the challenges that arise for social policies, once they seek to take up the nudges and messages entailed in social innovations.
Presenters:
- Florian Wukovitsch (Vienna University of Economics and Business), dr. Tatiana Sarius (University of Urbino), Pieter Cools (University of Antwerp) and Fabio Colombo (University of Urbino)
- Prof. dr. Adalbert Evers (Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, WILCO)
Workshop organisers: Prof. dr. Stijn Oosterlynck (University of Antwerp), Prof. dr. Yuri Kazepov (University of Urbino) and Prof. dr. Andreas Novy (Vienna University of Economics and Business)