Social Innovation

The Nordic countries and regions are facing severe demographic changes such as stagnation or reduction of the share of working age population, out-migration and significant increase in the share of population over the age of 65. In the framework of the Nordic Council of Minister's Working Group on Demography and Welfare, the workshop Social Innovation: new Nordic approaches for solving demographic and welfare challenges explores the potential for social innovation to identify and implement new ways for addressing durably this demographic shift and mitigates its impact on local communities and for which better integration of responses developed at local, regional and national authorities in the Nordic countries.

The concept of social innovation has been around in the academic discourse for a while now, but it has gain momentum recently to its emergence in the European policy discourse. It is about the development and implementation of new ideas (products, services and models) to meet social needs and create new social relationships or collaborations, i.e. using a more participatory approach.

The objectives of the workshop are:

• To sharpen the understanding of how recent research on social innovation can provide possible tracks for developing new tools to support local initiatives in mitigating the impacts of the demographic shift
• To bring together policy-makers and practitioners from different institutional levels and open a platform for exchange of experience on applying the social innovation approach in meeting demographic challenges;
• To inspire new collaborative governance approaches for securing the provision of services in all parts of the Nordic countries.

Nordregio invites regional and local practitioners and policymakers as well as researchers in regional studies to share their views and contribute to identifying the potential added-value of social innovation in meeting the demographic challenges across the Nordic countries.

Participation to the workshop is free of charge, but the number of participants is limited and preliminary registration is required. If you are interested in participating, please register by email to liisa.perjo@nordregio.se no later than September 9th, 2014. Please include your name, affiliation and email address.

Download the programme