Introduction

This chapter addresses the consolidation processes of socially innovative initiatives and projects, in particular how they are able to stabilise their activities over time. It analyses the relation between the innovative initiatives in the 31 ImPRovE case studies and their welfare contexts. In particular, the chapter aims at understanding which are the conditions favouring or constraining their (at least potential) survival and/or development, considering their integration into mainstream policies as one of the options. It also attempts to identify the influence these initiatives exert on the wider policies to fight poverty and social exclusion.

One of our key assumptions relies on the truism that social innovation is a relational process, which is contextually embedded, and which – at the same time – challenges its own context. It emerges as a reaction to the inability of consolidated policies in meeting emerging or existing needs and its potential growth or consolidation may depend (also) on the governance systems’ capacity to identify, accept and share new ideas (Oosterlynck et al, 2013a).

Even though social innovation may emerge as an isolated initiative, it bears the potential for challenging conventional policy balances, existing stakeholders’ relations and distribution of power and resources. For this reason, it may create conflicts and contestations. It might also challenge the multilevel institutional arrangements with the aim of expanding and influencing broader contexts.

The consolidation of social innovation goes through dynamic processes of (up)scaling diffusion and institutionalisation. These processes could exclude each other, proceed in parallel or combine to become different stages of a complex pattern of change. These stages have already been partially analysed in Chapter 4, in relation to the link between social innovation and the welfare mix and in Chapter 5, in relation to the multiple scales through which innovation takes place. In this chapter, we will focus mainly on the relation and interaction of social innovation with the respective institutional contexts from the perspective of the consolidation of socially innovative initiatives. In particular, we will analyse the conditions at the very basis of this process of the 31 ImPRovE case studies, trying to identify the main dimensions influencing it.