A framework for assessing the impacts of social innovation. Social innovation is becoming increasingly recognised as an important component of innovations in rural areas with a strong potential to contribute to local development in these areas. However, there are no commonly agreed indicators or metrics that may capture social innovation impacts. In addition, the often intangible character of social innovations consisting of new ideas, changes in attitudes or re-establishing practices makes it difficult to measure. For these reasons, the conceptual and methodological framework offered by this RurAction project can be a useful when designing evaluations of innovation in the context of the CAP, in particular social innovations.
Local action groups struggle with the impact assessment of social innovation activities and projects. The empirical evidence suggests that the ambiguity of the social innovation concept plays a role in identifying the activities as a social innovation in the first place. Furthermore, assessing causality (i.e. whether the change resulted from the implementation of a specific social innovation project or from other aspects) imposes difficulties in assessing impact.
While conventional methods of impact measurement tend to rely on numerical (‘quantitative’) data, evidence from RurAction points out the need for a different approach to impact assessment that would pay greater attention to ‘qualitative’ developments such as network building, community engagement, increased participation, etc. By its own nature, social innovation cannot be assessed only using metrics and quantitative approaches. Therefore, it is important to combine both qualitative and quantitative approaches to assess impact and inform policy and practice.
This is a theoretical framework for assessing the impacts of social innovations that has only been tested in two Member States. Therefore, it can be used by other Member States for assessing social innovations as is or adapted to suit their own contexts. For instance, the qualitative component could be expanded or diversified in terms of the typology of interviewees or of survey participants.