Database: Social innovations in marginalised rural areas
This tool is a database of more than 200 projects that is continuously updated and allows users to search and retrieve projects according to region, sector, and social innovation topic
Page contents
Output Description
The SIMRA project gathered 211 social innovations in agriculture, forestry and rural development in rural areas across Europe and non-European Mediterranean regions. Of these, 88 examples were positively validated using the SIMRA definition of social innovation and meet the following four criteria for selection:
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They display a reconfiguration of social practices (relationships/collaborations/networks/institutions/governance structures) in response to societal challenges;
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The act of novel reconfiguration above involves civil society members as active participants;
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The novelty/reconfiguration takes place in new geographical settings or relation to previously disengaged social group(s);
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It better meets social, environmental or economic aims/goals looking to improve societal wellbeing.
The social innovations are classified according to region, sector, and topic. Regions include Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe, Outermost regions and Non-EU Mediterranean. The sectors refer to agriculture, forestry and rural development. The topics include almost 30 different areas of intervention.
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The first step for identifying social innovation was to use a common working definition of social innovation: ‘the reconfiguring of social practices, in response to societal challenges, which seeks to enhance outcomes on societal well-being and necessarily includes the engagement of civil society actors’.
Social innovation goes across different policy areas. A common working definition helped identify what is common across these areas which may have been overlooked if the project had looked at initiatives with the usual lens. -
Access to land, Artistic Creation and Craftworks, Broadband and/ or ICT, Childhood and/or Youth, Commons and/or Cooperatives, Community Agriculture, Crowdfunding, Education, Employment, Empowerment of women, Energy, Entrepreneurship, Environment Conservation, Fire Prevention, Fishery / Aquaculture, Forest Management, Livestock and/or Pastoralism, Local Development, Local Food, Integration of migrants, Mycology, Networking, Renewable Energy, Services provision, Social Farming, Sustainable/Organic Agriculture, Tourism, Vulnerable Population, Waste and Recycling, Water Management, Wellbeing.
The full dataset is available at the SIMRA Catalogue of Social Innovation Diversity in Rural Areas archived in the Zenodo repository. This database is a work-in-progress and is still being updated. The database is distributed in a spreadsheet document that includes descriptive information of all the examples reviewed and recorded by SIMRA.
Relevance for monitoring and evaluation of the CAP
The database provides a set of criteria for screening social innovation interventions. These criteria result from an extensive research among more than 200 projects and are very useful to monitoring and evaluation stakeholders.
The database can offer examples of social innovations that can be used as peer learning across different contexts.
This database is a source of information and data on:
- project implementation (i.e. synergies achieved, networks utilised);
- results and how they were achieved (i.e. people that participated, localities involved, products sold, or cultivated areas);
- practices that were employed (i.e. networking, training/teaching, public participation);
- indicators (i.e. indicators that analysed the projects in the database can be used with other indicators, like Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators, to get a better understanding of the local context).
Thus, each project can be an inspiration for monitoring and evaluation. It can be used in answering the question about the impact of social innovation on a specific indicator. How, why and under what circumstances has social innovation increased participation or increased sales, or supported competitiveness? Evaluators can use it first, to understand better the concept of social innovation, which is relatively new in rural development policy, and second, as an example of what data to collect or what types of information to seek. In addition, the database contains examples from many non-agricultural policies that are active in rural areas, including policies targeting social needs and demands, policies targeting societal challenges and policies targeting institutional change, participation and inclusion of civil society.
Conditions for use:
When looking at the social innovation examples in the database, it is important to have in mind that the data comes from self-assessments and self-perceptions of the people working in these projects. It therefore reflects what is relevant for them and the dimensions that make a difference in terms of development in rural areas.
The database is available for free, accessible online, downloadable and continuously updated. However, validation and quality control of the database is required over time.
Relevance of the output per CAP Objectives
- Specific Objective 3 - Improve farmers' position in the food chain
- Specific Objective 4 - Climate change action
- Specific Objective 5 - Environmental care
- Specific Objective 6 - Preserve landscape and biodiversity
- Specific Objective 8 - Vibrant rural areas
- Cross-cutting Objective - Fostering knowledge and innovation
Additional output information
Data collection systems used:
- Eurostat
- Ad-hoc data collection
Type of output:
- New / improved data for M&E
- New indicators
- Database/ data registry
Associated evaluation approaches:
- Desk research
- Impact evaluation ex post
- Impact evaluation ongoing
Spatial scale:
- Sub-regional / local
- Regional
- National
Project information
Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas
SIMRA seeks to advance understanding of social innovation (SI) and innovative governance in agriculture, forestry and rural development. SIMRA also attempts to promote them, particularly in marginalised rural areas across Europe with a focus on the Mediterranean region (including non-EU) where there is limited evidence of outcomes and supporting conditions.
Specific objectives:
- To develop a systematic theoretical framework and a systematic operational framework for categorising, understanding, and operationalising social innovation in different settings and across scales.
- To produce a ‘catalogue of diversity’ which is a categorisation/classification of social innovations observable in rural areas.
- To produce an integrated set of methods developed for the evaluation of social innovation and its impacts in rural areas.
- To co-construct the evaluation of social innovation in case studies across European rural areas.
- To synthesise and disseminate new or improved knowledge on SIs including novel governance mechanisms to promote social capital and institutional capacity building.
- To create collaborative learning and networking opportunities and to launch innovative actions at different/multiple scales.
Project’s timeframe: 2016 – 2020
Contacts of project holder: SIMRA Project manager: David Miller, James Hutton Institute David.Miller@hutton.ac.uk
SIMRA Project Coordinator: Dr. Prof. Maria Nijnik, James Hutton Institute maria.nijnik@hutton.ac.uk
Website: SIMRA: http://www.simra-h2020.eu/
CORDIS database: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/677622
Territorial coverage: Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, The Netherlands