Social Innovation Policy In Europe: Where Next?

The European Commission (EC) has been a leading proponent of social innovation for over ten years. The Commission and its Directorates-General have used several of the policy levers at its disposal - from structural funds and public procurement to regulation - to promote social innovation at a European level and in Member States, while working to facilitate international collaboration. In recent years a number of social innovation experiments and policies have emerged. As a result, we can start to see how ‘social innovation policy’ might eventually emerge as a recognised policy field. Although good progress has been made, the degree to which social innovation is supported by different parts of the Commission remains uneven. In the first of its annual policy reports, ‘Social innovation policy in Europe: where next?’, published late in 2016, the Social Innovation Community set out the future vision of what a distinctive field of social innovation policy could look like. While support for social innovation at a European level has gained ground in recent years, the report challenges European policymakers to go further in forging this new field, in particular by: 1. Creating a more joined-up approach to social innovation policy within the European Commission, as well as by policymakers at sub-EU level. 2. Empowering policymakers to use the tools of social innovation to make better policy. 3. Helping to find ways to enable social innovation to flourish in those places where the concept is still new but could add great benefit.