The European Commission (DG Research and Innovation) tasked the UK based NGO PlusValue to identify solutions and make recommendations for a revived social innovation agenda of the Union.

The study Vision and Trends of Social Innovation for Europe  is the outcome of the research undertaken by Filippo Addarii and Fiorenza Lipparini and recently published by the European Commission.

Art is Open Source and our partner HER – Human Ecosystems Relazioni, with the HUB project in Bologna, are listed among the projects and best practices of the research.

We asked the authors of the research Fiorenza Lipparini and Filippo Addarii why, from their perspective, social innovation is a key factor in building Europe today:

“Social Innovation has been among the European Commission policy priorities since 2010, when the Europe 2020 Strategy was launched. However, the magnitude of the challenges we are called to face today – from ageing population to fast changing family structures, from the raise of inequality and of entirely new forms of poverty to plummeting levels of trust in public institutions to tackle global phenomena such as migration, climate change or the spread of increasingly sophisticated forms of online manipulation of the public opinion, not to mention the potentially devastating effects of the ongoing technological revolution on the job market and, therefore, on states’ revenues streams – demand another level of ambition and institutional commitment.”

[…]

“In this paper, we suggest to take a human-centred, systemic and strongly political approach to match these challenges, engaging not only with the private and third sectors, but with each and every person who wants to contribute to building a fairer Europe for future generations.”

Dowload the full paper here.