Social innovation is one key element of prosperity and a crucial aspect of sustainable development. However this is not an easy concept to define: there is social innovation wherever new mechanisms and norms consolidate and improve the well-being of individuals, communities and territories in terms of social inclusion, creation of employment, quality of life. Social enterprises and the non-profit sector in general, have demonstrated to be means to achieve social and economic goals.

Over the last years, the LEED Programme has developed a thorough expertise on social issues at local level. The aim of this activity is to monitor OECD’s countries experience in the local implementation of measures to integrate the socially excluded, and to identify and analyse the role of the non-profit sector in generating new economic activity and creating new mechanisms of social inclusion.

Social innovation aims at satisfying new needs not taken on by the market or creating new, more satisfactory ways of insertion in terms of giving people a place and a role in economic and social life, while economic innovation is about introducing new types of production or exploiting new markets. Social innovation can encompass conceptual, organisational change, changes in financing, and changes in the relationships between stakeholders and territories.

LEED activities on social innovations are carried out within the framework of the Forum on Social Innovations. A scientific committee on Social Economy and Social Innovations has been set up in the LEED Trento Centre to feed the work and link academics, policy-makers and practitioners. Main projects include community capacity building to help communities to get organised and structured, and social enterprises as a key contribution to local development and inclusion.

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