“…In two out of nine cases, the effects of the SI initiatives have become visible even if the initiatives are quite recent, and in one case, the impacts are expected in the future, thus providing directions for planning and policy making. These empirical data are consistent with studies showing that promoting SI in rural and marginalized areas is important, as it has positive effects mainly on the society, economy, and governance (e.g., [17,19,58,76,[82][83][84][85][86][87][88]). By taking the forms of social cooperatives, associations, social enterprises and private-public partnerships, SI proposes innovative solutions, models, services and approaches that tackle different complex social issues (e.g., labor market integration, social exclusion and poverty, discrimination, social service delivery, and disproportionate resource uses).…”
Section: Positive and Negative Effects Of Si Iinitiativessupporting
Social innovation (SI) impacts are long-term changes that affect different dimensions of territorial capital (i.e., economy, society, environment, governance) for the territory in which SI occurs. Yet, systematic empirical evidence and theoretically sound assessments of the impacts of SI are scarce. This paper aims to fill the gap and assess the different aspects of SI’s impacts in European and Mediterranean areas that are characterized by marginalization processes. To assess the impacts of SI in marginalized areas, we use the evaluation framework developed within the Social Innovation in Marginalized Rural Areas (SIMRA) Horizon 2020 project and apply it to nine SI initiatives related to the fields of agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and rural development. Our findings show that SI produces cross-sectoral (societal, economic, environmental, and governmental) and multi-level impacts (on individuals, community, and society), which have improved the societal well-being, and contributed to the reduction of certain forms of marginality, mainly inside the territory in which SI occurred.
“…In two out of nine cases, the effects of the SI initiatives have become visible even if the initiatives are quite recent, and in one case, the impacts are expected in the future, thus providing directions for planning and policy making. These empirical data are consistent with studies showing that promoting SI in rural and marginalized areas is important, as it has positive effects mainly on the society, economy, and governance (e.g., [17,19,58,76,[82][83][84][85][86][87][88]). By taking the forms of social cooperatives, associations, social enterprises and private-public partnerships, SI proposes innovative solutions, models, services and approaches that tackle different complex social issues (e.g., labor market integration, social exclusion and poverty, discrimination, social service delivery, and disproportionate resource uses).…”
Section: Positive and Negative Effects Of Si Iinitiativessupporting
Social innovation (SI) impacts are long-term changes that affect different dimensions of territorial capital (i.e., economy, society, environment, governance) for the territory in which SI occurs. Yet, systematic empirical evidence and theoretically sound assessments of the impacts of SI are scarce. This paper aims to fill the gap and assess the different aspects of SI’s impacts in European and Mediterranean areas that are characterized by marginalization processes. To assess the impacts of SI in marginalized areas, we use the evaluation framework developed within the Social Innovation in Marginalized Rural Areas (SIMRA) Horizon 2020 project and apply it to nine SI initiatives related to the fields of agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and rural development. Our findings show that SI produces cross-sectoral (societal, economic, environmental, and governmental) and multi-level impacts (on individuals, community, and society), which have improved the societal well-being, and contributed to the reduction of certain forms of marginality, mainly inside the territory in which SI occurred.
“…This led to an increase in the number of users of social networking services (SNSs), who are commonly called actors [1][2][3]. Currently, SNSs are expanding their functional characteristics and are used by actors for group interaction based on common interests, self-education, coordination in real life and doing business [4][5][6][7]. However, the communicative advantages of SNSs are used by malicious users to achieve unilateral advantages in the information space, and later-on the international geopolitical arena.…”
The article describes a decision support system based on fuzzy inference aimed to automate the procedure of choosing a model of formalizing the interaction between actors in virtual communities of social networking services and synergistic management of such processes. The developed system aims to increase the effectiveness of counteracting threats to information security of the state in social networking services. The mathematical apparatus of the fuzzy set theory and the Mamdani algorithm are the basis for the functioning of the decision support system. The usage of the developed fuzzy inference system will remove the ambiguity of information security expertise in the course of choosing approaches to formalization and the model of synergistic management of actors’ interaction in the conditions of incomplete information and ambiguous assessment of the state information security threat in social networking services.
“…The complexity involved in SI initiatives, arising from the multi-agent collaboration (e.g., non-profit organizations, municipalities, private firms, training institutions), and the multi-faceted nature of benefits which may be created by these activities (most of which are immaterial), poses a relevant challenge for the evaluation of the outcomes and, consequently, for grasping the whole relevance in terms of impacts for the whole society. It is worth mentioning that SI initiatives are highly dependent on intangible assets, typically included in the concept of social capital, as shared values, perceptions, expectations, trust, reciprocity [24][25][26][27], which deserves some form of representation (e.g., by means of evaluation), in order to exert a positive effect on the internal cohesion and external engagement (i.e., civil society).…”
Agriculture can be a possible provider of social services of relevant importance for the whole society. In order to generate a valuable social service, a multi-actor approach is often applied, based on an active collaboration among public institutions, non-profit organizations, and private firms, and capable of generating multiple positive impacts. This new approach may both favorite agricultural diversification and enhance the quality of life of rural communities. However, in order to enable policymakers in motivating the public support to these types of initiatives, an evaluation method capable of disentangling the multiple benefits generated by social agricultural projects is required. In this paper, we adapted the evaluation method previously developed by the SIMRA consortium for Social Innovation initiatives, to a project aimed at the employability of NEETs in the south of Italy. A selection grid, framed by cross-referencing the national policy objectives of social agriculture and the criteria of eligibility adopted in public calls is proposed, to choose the suitable indicators for the evaluation. The evaluation experience allowed the measurement of 34 indicators of performance. The results prove that 12 indicators are positive, while 12 are moderate, and 10 are low and are mainly related to the enhancement of social inclusion. The evaluation exercise may be useful to disentangling the multiple outcomes generated by initiatives based on social innovation, which are highly based on intangible assets, and exert a positive effect on the internal cohesion and the engagement of the civil society.
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