Making social innovation happen – Analysis of best practices on support to social innovation

Supporting all elements and stages of social innovation

Intended for any actor interested in supporting social innovation projects and ecosystems, this report analyzes this support through the lens of all social innovation “elements” : identifying the societal challenge, mobilizing actors and resources, generating ideas and designing solutions, realizing and scaling up the social innovation, and societal impact. This conception of social innovation emphasizes that these “elements” do not necessarily follow a chronological order, but are rather “continuously iterated and interwoven to cope with the complexity of the societal challenge.” As shown in the report, each of these elements can mobilize and benefit from specific support, both financial and non-financial.
Besides, this report highlights the need to support social innovation at all “levels” : micro (individual initiatives), meso (networking and ecosystem of initiatives) and macro (societal structures, such as policies, regulations or norms).

Conclusions and recommendations

In order to better support social innovation processes, the need for more long-term and systematic financing, for clearer political support and guidance or for a stronger organization and facilitation of the ecosystem are some examples that were mentioned by the support actors in the study. Based on the findings of its study, this report highlights several recommendations, including:

• make better use of existing knowledge and approaches to support social innovation ; 
• ensure support to all elements of the social innovation process, not only ideation but also preparation, realization and impact ;
• help realize and scale initiatives on the micro, meso and macro levels ;
• strengthen the ecosystems that enable social innovation by establishing and managing local and regional platforms for cross-sectoral co-creation ; 
• create a coordinating function for support to social innovation on national and regional levels ;
• integrate social innovation support practices into regular systems and established institutions, e.g. through cross-sectoral co-creation and community involvement ;
• ensure public and private funding of social innovation in all elements and levels of the process ;
• improve public policy to better acknowledge and support social innovation ;
• support further knowledge development on how social innovation can be supported in practice.

More about BuiCaSuS

Recognized as the Competence center for social innovation in France, Avise has been mandated by the State to represent France within the European consortium BuiCaSuS co-funded by the ESF and the Program for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) 2014-2020. Made up of France, Latvia, Spain and Sweden, the latter was launched as part of the European Commission's "Competence Centers for Social Innovation" call for projects, which aims to strengthen and create a lasting competence center for social innovation in each Member State.

>> Discover the report "Mapping and analysis of the French social innovation ecosystem", produced by Avise within the BuiCaSuS project.