What Are the Impacts of Social Innovation? A Synthetic Review and Case Study of Community Forestry in the Scottish Highlands

In a context of political and economic austerity, social innovation has been presented as a solution to many social challenges, old and new. It aims to support the introduction of new ideas in response to the current urgent needs and challenges of vulnerable groups and seems to offer promising solutions to the challenges faced by rural areas. Yet the evidence base of the impacts on the sustainable development of rural communities remains scarce. In this paper, we explore social innovation in the context of community forestry and provide a brief synthetic review of key themes linking the two concepts. We examine a case of social innovation in the context of community forestry and analyse its type, extent, and scale of impact in a marginalized rural area of Scotland. Using an in-depth case study approach, we apply a mixed research methodology using quantitative indicators of impact as well as qualitative data. Our results show that social innovation reinforces the social dimension of community forestry. Impacts are highlighted across domains (environmental, social, economic, and institutional/governance) but are mainly limited to local territory. We discuss the significance of those results in the context of community forestry as well as for local development. We formulate policy recommendations to foster and sustain social innovation in rural areas

Testing a framework to co-construct social innovation actions: Insights from seven marginalized rural areas

Innovation actions within European Horizon 2020 (H2020) projects aim at testing research results in practice. When supporting social innovations in rural areas, such testing requires the alignment of several rural actors in order to entail behavioral changes beyond the individual level. Recently, social innovation has been recognized as an important tool for rural areas, developing new solutions to respond to wicked problems for improving local living conditions at the grassroots level. In this study, we analyzed the use of an operational framework to support the early governance of social innovation actions. This framework was applied to co-construct seven innovation actions across Europe and the Mediterranean basin applied to forestry, agriculture, and rural development. Our results showed that supporting social innovators and local actors at the early stage of social innovation processes is key for efficiently addressing and tackling challenges and opportunities. Additionally, we showed that the process of defining a social innovation is complex and requires recursive engagement, which might lead to evolution through time, especially in the first phases of the process. Lastly, conducting the feasibility assessment enabled strategic thinking on crucial dimensions for designing a promising social innovation action, such as social networks management, financial sustainability, and know-how. Such findings helped us to draw general lessons for the development and governance of social innovation actions in rural areas, potentially applicable to any rural sector. © 2020 by the author

Human values as catalysts and consequences of social innovations

Abstract We studied the role of human values in social innovations (SIs) in four forest-dependent communities (FDCs) in Europe. We draw on 71 semi-structured interviews with FDC members in Finland, Slovenia, the UK and Ukraine, and a survey of householders (n = 150) and focus group interviews with related stakeholders in Ukraine. The material collected was analyzed with mixed methods with respect to relational values as catalysts and consequences of SI. Relational values, which are derivative of the relationships between human and non-human world, and responsibilities towards these relationships, were divided into three categories: Doing, Belonging and Respecting. Doing encompasses the individual’s perspective of the opportunities offered by nature to individuals. Belonging encompasses a communal dimension of values manifested as the experience of “being at home” in social collectives and landscapes. Respecting addresses environmental and social justice. Common cause for SI was the need of FDCs to sustain or enhance relational values linked to forests while, once emerged, SIs also have potential to become global game-changers. SI encompasses the reconfiguration of: i) forest management and use, ii) decision-making structures and processes, and iii) stakeholder’s perceptions of sustainability. Examples include the co-management arrangement between a State forestry enterprise and the local community, buying woodland from the State by the FDCs to enable community forestry, reinvention of traditional forest management, and the active involvement of FDC members in halting illegal logging. As a conclusion, we developed a general value hierarchy accounting for value plurality in which relational, instrumental and intrinsic values can be interpreted from any perspective

Is there a scope for social innovation in Ukrainian forestry?

Abstract Social innovation is recognised for its potential to turn societal challenges into opportunities and develop sustainable solutions for people and nature. We identify and examine challenges that Ukrainian forestry is facing and apply an “action arena” conceptual approach to explore whether and how social innovation can enhance the sustainable development of forestry. We develop a framework to analyse the reconfiguration of social practices by using research methods that focus on the use of documentation of the institutional contexts and interviewing forest policy experts, as well as stakeholder evaluation of the challenges and ways forward for Ukrainian forestry. We apply the Q-method to identify stakeholder attitudes and examine the role of people in the reconfiguring of social practices and promoting sustainable development of the forest sector. Implications for changing the rules of the game and institutional perspectives on forestry are identified, with examples of social innovation initiatives presented. Results show that to emerge, develop, and be transformative, social innovation must have supporting institutional conditions to create new norms, rules, and social practices. Relevant stakeholders need to envision alternative futures, reshape places, and become more actively engaged in decision-making processes. We identify the key directions for changing the rules of the game and the opportunities that social innovation has to offer

An institutional analysis and reconfiguration framework for sustainability research on post-transition forestry:a focus on Ukraine

Abstract In this paper, we elaborate an Institutional Analysis and Reconfiguration Framework centered around the ‘action arena’ theoretical approach. We develop this framework to analyze institutional reconfiguration to enhance sustainability, and operationalize it using research methods which focus on documentation of the institutional contexts through an extensive literature review and interviews of experts in forest policy. We apply the Institutional Analysis and Reconfiguration Framework to examine forestry institutions, address forest governance, and investigate their effect on socio-economic and environmental performances in forestry of Ukraine. The paper draws on the state of affairs in post-transition forestry, its difficulties, and new prospects for economic and institutional reforms. We examine challenges and opportunities in forestry and suggest key remedies and prospective ways forward. Results show that a combination of path dependency with the rigidity of institutions and a slow pace of economic and political reforms is the major obstacle to implementing decisions regarding sustainable forest policy. A reconfiguration of social practices is required, as well as the development of capabilities and awareness raising amongst relevant stakeholders, to realize the problems, envision alternative futures, challenge existing institutions, shift power relations and create new norms, rules, and decision-making arrangements. The way towards sustainability in forestry largely goes through changing institutions, and a human dimension of institutional changes reflected in the uptake of social innovation

Set of methods to assess SI implications at different levels: instructions for WPs 5 and 6. Deliverable D4.2, Social Innovation in Marginalized Rural Areas Project (SIMRA), Demonstrator to the European Commission.

The report (Deliverable 4.2 of SIMRA project) presents a preliminary set of integrated methods for measuring social innovation and its impacts on the components of territorial capital for use in Work Package 5 (case studies), and evaluating the policy implications of social innovation at different levels for use in Work Package 6 (policy analysis). It provides the framework to guide evaluation of social innovation in the case studies, explaining the various elements and components of social innovation in marginalised rural areas; it provides an overview of the approach to evaluation, in terms of scale of application, focus of the analysis, criteria of evaluation, methods and tools; it provides the list of questions to be used in structured and semi-structured interviews and other data collection tools; and, finally, it provides instructions for testing the use of the proposed methods and tools in a few, selected pioneer case studies and policy analysis (i.e. it provides guidance to SIMRA Work Packages 5 and 6)

Can social innovation make a change in European and Mediterranean marginalized areas?:social innovation impact assessment in agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and rural development

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