CRESSI · Creating Economic Space for Social Innovation

The CRESSI project will explore the economic underpinnings of social innovation with a particular focus on how policy and practice can enhance the lives of the most marginalized and disempowered citizens in society. Overall, the bid will take an institutionalist view of the key issues exploring the drivers and structures that lead to marginalization and disempowerment and then setting out how interventions drawing on social innovation can address major economic, social and power imbalances and inequalities. The project draws upon three interlinked strands of theory to provide an overarching conceptual framework: Beckert’s social grid model; Sen’s Capabilities Approach; Mann’s analysis of institutional power structures and their enactments. The main work packages will focus on: establishing an economic theory and context for social innovation across the EU; contextualizing social innovation within established research and practice on technological innovation; exploring emergent social innovation ecosystems and lifecycles; setting out effective policy agendas and instruments for fostering social innovation; establishing best practice metrics for capturing the impact of social innovation. In addition, discrete work packages will focus on the overall management of the project and the dissemination of its key findings and contributions. The conceptual and theoretical elements of the project will be tested and revised with a rigorous programme of empirical data collection encompassing qualitative case studies and linked quantitative analyses with a focus on key topic areas across several member states that can inform the EU Commission debates on building smart economies that reduce inequality and socio-economic marginalization.