The ASIS (Alpine Social Innovation Strategy) project, financed by the INTERREG Alpine Space program, aims to launch, develop and promote Social Innovation (SI) as a new vision of innovation in the Alpine space area. All this with the objective of increasing the innovation capacity of Alpine space regions and better answer to economic and societal challenges met by each Alpine region.

You can visit the project website : www.alpine-space.eu/projects/asis/

The ASIS project is financed by INTERREG Alpine Space.

The Alpine Space programme is a European transnational cooperation program for the Alpine region. It provides a framework to facilitate the cooperation between key players in seven Alpine countries.

The program is financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as well as by national public and private co-funding of the partners’ states.

The ASIS project partners come from 5 different countries of the Alpine region:

University of Lyon II – Chaire ESS, Département de l’Isère and Oxalis Scop from France, Carinthia University of Applied Sciences and Amadeus Association from Austria, Steinbeis 2i GmbH from Germany, Development Agency Kozjansko and Center Noordung from Slovenia, the City of Torino and the Chamber of Commerce of Torino from Italy.

Funding

Duration

REPORT ON NEW ALPINE SPACE PROGRAM SOCIAL INNOVATION VISION

Social innovation general definition 

• A new answer to social needs or societal challenges, met by Alp area, regardless of the nature of innovation (technology, services, new uses…),
• Through a collaborative approach that involves beneficiaries, users and affected stake holders,
• That has a positive, sustainable and measurable impact.

Possible levels of applications

• Social needs and societal challenges* (ecological issues must be linked to social need or challenge?) Cf. WPT2
• Positive impact
• Sustainable impact
• Measurable impacts
• Beneficiaries/users

Social innovation impact

• What are the criteria? (definition)
• What are the indicators? (evaluation)

Social innovation criteria

We need to agree on the definition of each of these elements:

• Level of newness / concept of innovation
• Social dimension
• Ecological (environmental) dimension.

How do we consider this question of environment? Either as a separate condition if we consider ecology and social innovation are closely related or do we only consider the environment aspect when it is clearly linked to a social need, as suggested (cf. WPT2)

Social impact measurement

We suggest to determine 2 or 3 simple key elements easy to operate to measure social impact and to consider time of observation.

• Level of complexity. Logical course of action doesn’t allow complex models. Cf. WP4. (some simple tools have been developed by AVISE and other organisations).

>   Social impact existing tools benchmark

• Duration: Immediate impact/medium term and long-term impact and connection between impact in time.
• Effectiveness/efficiency (= effectiveness + level of mobilized resources)
• Side effects/unexpected effects (on observed population or another population)

Assumption: An action cannot be presented as a positive impact if it induces a negative impact otherwise.

Report on a shared ASP strategy framework – Deliverable D.T2.3.1 (From axes of cooperation and development on SI between Alpine Space to proposition of a shared ASP strategy framework on SI)

The Alpine Area’s 450 thousand square kilometers is home to an estimated 70 million inhabitants, but a place where over 40% of the regions is scarcely populated. As emerged from partners’ territorial analysis, it is a territory with very different economic, social and environmental features, in which ASIS partner developed very different SI initiatives to respond to local challenges. Shortly they are:
• Increase the capacity to respond to economic globalization, increasing the innovation capacity and sustainable competitivity;
• Address an ageing population, demographic changes due to immigration;
• Improve living conditions in urban areas, particularly in low-income neighborhoods;
• Address climate change and its consequences on economic sectors, on living conditions, on environment and biodiversity;
• Improve the governance to reduce socio-economic gap between urban, rural and mountain areas;
• Develop enterprises and job opportunities in the inner areas of the Alpine regions;
• Guarantee energy supply, aligned with EU goals, even in the less accessible areas;
• Improve mobility and accessibility in the inner areas, in sustainable ways;
• Incentives to a low CO2 emissions economy based on the enhancement of local resources.

Given this framework, and considering partners’ guidance, the document will propose cooperation axes in relation to Social Innovation (SI) among the Alpine regions.

Link to full report

Analysis of State of the art of public policies in ASP region (Deliverable D.T5.1)

In this analysis we try to map ASP regions policies that support social innovation and research what each country or region has done and how it has progressed in implementing the policies. We will see that we cannot talk about one common SI policy as a EU SI policy. Each country and possibly each region have their own way of addressing social challenges and different stakeholders are implementing social innovations.

In recent years, social innovation has become an increasingly prominent concept employed by political leaders and administrations across the world. In 2003, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) supported a range of initiatives and research to promote inclusive entrepreneurship and improve social cohesion through the identification and dissemination of local innovations. Innovation has been of enduring interest and concern for European Union (EU) policy for many years (Borzaga and Bodini 2014), but since the late 1990s social innovation in particular has captured the political interest of supranational organisations and domestic actors (Pol and Ville 2009; Grisolia and Ferragina 2015). In the EU, social innovation has been positioned as a solution to both old and new social risks at a time of heightened uncertainty and pressure on public administrations and finances (Bonoli 2005; OECD 2011; Sinclair and Baglioni 2014). It seems clear that this considerable interest in social innovation has been intimately linked to the Great Recession, structural unemployment and the social challenges arising as a result (European Commission 2014a). Indeed, a key feature of the Europe 2020 strategy was to facilitate and embed social innovation across Europe to ‘deliver the kind of inclusive and sustainable social market economy we all want to live in’ (BEPA 2010: 16).

Social innovations are new ideas that meet social needs, create social relationships and form new collaborations. These innovations can be products, services or models addressing unmet needs more effectively. The European Commission’s objective is to encourage market uptake of innovative solutions and stimulate employment.

Link to full report

Methodologies definition to improve existing and develop new policies to support SI (Deliverable D.T5.2.1)

The following paper is part of an ASIS project work package 5, where in action 2 we are designing new strategic policies on social innovation (SI) at regional and local level. Below you will be able to see methods for five pilot areas, namely France (Department of Isere), Italy (City of Torino), Germany (Region Baden-Wuerttemberg), Austria (Region of Carinthia) and Slovenia. Methods are defined for the creation of the framework for the improvement of existing policies and development of new policies that are better responding to the needs of social innovation and stakeholders promoting SI.

The basic frame for the methodology was proposed by the lead partner in this work package on the basis of which each country adapted the methodology to its specific conditions.

In this deliverable we are trying to define methodologies to implement a bottom up approach that will help to create an adequate framework for development of suitable support policies for SI.

The proposed common methodology is presented in steps that are defined below:

Link to full paper.

How to assess a project with ASIS evaluation tool?

CUAS University, within the frame of the ASIS project, has developed a software that facilitates the selection of promising projects with social impact. This instrument has been designed to compare new projects with existing social innovation projects in the Alpine space.
After entering information from the application, the outcome sheet displays the values of the proposal compared with successful existing projects, giving some hints about the likelihood of success, or what should be adjusted.
This tool can be used in the framework of the distribution of funding schemes at national, regional and local level, but also at European level.

We offer you two options to get and use this instrument.

< The tool is available on line, by clicking on the link: Evaluation tool
< You can also download the tool here : Download

To help you use this software, we have prepared a handbook, available in 5 different languages.

Link to more info on ASIS evaluation tool.

ASIS traings.

Why ASIS trainings?

The ASIS (Alpine Social Innovation Strategy) project aims to launch, develop and promote Social Innovation (SI) as a new vision of innovation in the Alpine space area.
We want to make an impact in all alpine countries by disseminating the project results to relevant stakeholders so that actors implementing social innovation projects can benefit from the concrete findings of the project. For this reason, the project developed online trainings which will transfer new knowledge created in the thematic work packages of the project. These materials are accessible to the public on the ASIS platform.

The online trainings are designed in a way that all interested stakeholders can go through them independently and benefit from the learning experience at their own pace. They consist of a presentation, one or more videos to consolidate the training content as well as a quiz which allows trainings participants to test the knowledge they acquired through following the training.

Who are the trainings for?

The ASIS online trainings are designed to disseminate project findings to Public Authorities, sectorial agencies, business support organisations, companies as well as higher education and research institutes. Each training entails a short introduction describing the objectives and target groups of the respective training.

How are the materials developed?

All ASIS trainings are developed in a joint participatory approach. Based on the project’s research activities, the ASIS project partners defined 8 topics for online trainings. Each partner developed a concept for their respective training topic.

In February 2020, all ASIS partners came together in Karlsruhe, Germany, to discuss the partners’ concepts in an interactive workshop. Stakeholders from different regions were also invited to provide input to the proposed concepts. All partners proceeded to develop their trainings with the support of the work package leader Steinbeis 2i and feedback from other partners.

During a 3-month testing phase, the trainings are available to a selected group of stakeholders who will provide feedback to the developed materials. The feedback will be evaluated by the means of a grid analysis which will serve as a basis for a final improvement of the materials.

All trainings will be available on the ASIS platform in 5 languages (English, French, Italian, German, Slovenian) in February 2021.

Link to more info on ASIS trainings.

Social Innovation Academy – February & March 2021

Download the document here: A Shared Social Innovation Strategy for the Alpine Space Region

ASIS FORUM: Forum