Methodological framework for assessing impact of social innovation

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One of the RurAction projects (the Early Stages Researcher project) focuses on the socio-economic impact of social innovation on regional development in structurally weak rural regions. More specifically, it focuses on problems in rural regions in Europe and the impact of social entrepreneurship regarding the development of innovative solutions.

Regional development

Regional development in the context of this project refers to development in structurally weak rural regions in Europe. It focuses on 'predominantly rural' regions and particularly structurally weak rural regions, which are economically less productive, as expressed in the low level of gross domestic product (GDP). Key characteristics of these regions are the less extensive scope of desired goods and services, limited opportunities for higher education and qualified job offers, considerable loss of inhabitants and especially a brain drain of young and highly skilled people.

Structurally weak rural regions

Structurally weak rural regions are defined as regions that face a multitude of socioeconomic disadvantages resulting from dynamics such as out-migration, ageing of the population, labour shortages, economic transformations of traditional sectors and a weak endowment of organisations that may help alleviate these problems.

See: Heike Mayer and Antoine Habersetze. 2019. Structurally Weak Rural Regions. In, The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118568446.eurs0431

The underlying objectives for the project include to develop a transparent conceptual framework for analysing social innovation, to interlink social innovation and regional development theories and to develop a set of indicators that could allow one to assess the impacts of these social innovations on regional development.

Conceptual framework for assessing social innovation

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The Early Stages Researcher (ESR) project’s research questions are:

How do social innovations influence regional development?
How can the impact of social innovations in regional development be assessed?

The methodological framework for answering these research questions combines qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis, including:

Qualitative Data Collection: semi-structured expert interviews with regional development experts and members of social enterprises in Muehlviertel, Austria (Secondment 1) and Baixo Alentejo, Portugal (Secondment 2)
Qualitative Data Analysis: analysis of interviews (e.g. MAXQDA software tool and Atlas.ti)
Quantitative Data Collection: online survey with experts in 2 RurAction regions
Quantitative Data Analysis: inferential statistics (e.g. SPSS)

The application of this framework was carried out in cooperation between social enterprises and academics and was completed in both case study regions (Mühlviertel (Austria) and Baixo Alentejo (Portugal) NUTS 3 regions) for assessing the impacts of social innovation activities. The main conclusions from these applications are related to:

Dimensions of social innovation impacts

Social innovation impacts were classified according to:

types: tangible and intangible; intended and unintended; positive, negative or neutral/absent;
scales: spatial (local, regional, national); social (micro, meso, macro level);
domains: social; economic; environmental; institutional;
time: short-term; mid-term; long-term.

Intangible impacts

Such impacts include capacity building by organisations among local communities (through workshops, seminars, and one-on-one entrepreneurial consulting) and the empowerment of the local community through involvement in co-creating and co-producing projects. Social enterprises and local development organisations focus on the promotion of entrepreneurial skills and knowledge among local communities, alongside creating and strengthening networks among various actors and contributing to the capacity building of local communities.

The promotion of an integrated approach to rural development

LAGs and Local Development Associations strive for integrated development, meaning, the projects implemented by organisations cover various fields within one project, rather than target only one domain (e.g. promoting tourism through the use of natural assets and local knowledge). In most of the projects, organisations strive to promote holistic development by implementing interventions that cover various groups of people (e.g. elderly, young, female) simultaneously while also not limiting their projects to specific domains of (purely) economic or social development.

The promotion of opportunity driven social innovations

Rural development has experienced a shift towards perceiving available local assets as an opportunity and a valuable feature, rather than an obstacle. The importance of promoting opportunity driven social innovations, rather than solely problem-solving social innovations stems from the fact that opportunity driven social innovations can potentially provide more transformative outcomes. This is despite the fact that problem-oriented actions can often provide the best available solution at a given time.

Conceptual framework

Handbook for Practitioners

RurAction presentation at the Good Practice Workshop of the Evaluation Helpdesk

Relevance for monitoring and evaluation of the CAP

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.

Last modification date:

09/12/2021

Project details

RurAction:
Social Enterpreneurship in Structurally Weak Rural Regions: Analysing Innovative Troubleshooters in Action

Objectives

RURACTION intends to fill a gap between the subjects of 'social innovation', 'social enterpreneurship' and 'rural development' that were previously considered separately – both by EU policy and by previous research activities. Therefore, RurAction has the following objectives:

Conduct interdisciplinary, comparative and cross-regional research in a neglected research field.
Enhance the knowledge of the economic, political and cultural conditions rural regions provide for social entrepreneurial action.
Offer knowledge of the forms, processes and tools of social entrepreneurial problem solving for both supporting and inhibiting factors.
Provide knowledge of the generation, dissemination and impact of socially innovative approaches that respond to problems in structurally weak rural regions in Europe.

Timeframe:

2016 to 2021

Contacts of project holder:

Prof. Dr. Gabriela Christmann, Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS) (DE)

Project website(s):

RurAction

CORDIS database

Territorial coverage:

Autriche, Danemark, Allemagne, Grèce, Irlande, Pologne, Portugal

Relevant CAP Objectives:

H. Knowledge and innovation

Data Collection Systems Used:

Ad-hoc data collection
Eurostat

Associated Evaluation Approaches:

Impact evaluation ex post
Impact evaluation ongoing
Data analysis

Type of Output:

Methodology

Spatial Scale:

Regional

Keywords:

impact
LEADER/CLLD
regional development
rural development
social innovation