Social innovations

Social innovations as a means of reforming child protection

In Finland, the European Social Fund's plus period Social Innovations funding is directed towards reforming child protection through "Developing Future Safety Nets for Young People" program The development of social innovations is a funding condition for regional projects and coordination activities.

According to the "Developing Future Safety Nets for Young People" program, social innovations are

social in their goals, social in their means and broadly related to the everyday lives of children, young people and families.
they are new, functional ideas that help find solutions to society's needs and problems.
they have a positive impact on society, and their implementation creates new interactions.

Special features of social innovations in child protection and at interfaces

The features of social innovations are the result indicators of the program period. The program uses 16 specific characteristics of social innovations, corresponding to the definition of the Young Foundation (2012), as tools for analyzing social innovation ideas in child protection. The specific features have been compiled from the Renewing and Competent Finland 2021–2027 programming document, Developing Future Safety Nets for Young People theme descriptions and the application guidelines (2023).

The content of the image is explained in the text below.
Figure 1. Specific features of social innovation in child protection. Source: Jäppinen et al. 2024.

Definitions of social innovation

Social innovation refers to new practices, practices or operating models developed and implemented by child protection professionals and other actors that completely or partially reform child protection together with service users. The definition of social innovation recorded by the program is in line with other existing definitions. For example, the Young Foundation (2012) has made the definition of social innovation used by the European Union:

“Social innovations are new solutions (products, services, models, markets, processes, etc.) that simultaneously respond to a societal need (more effectively than existing solutions) and lead to new or improved capabilities and interactions, and to better use of assets and resources. In other words, social innovations are both good for society and increase the functioning of society.”

Demos Helsinki (2022) has also developed a definition of social innovations:

“Social innovations are new, functional ideas - services, products, models, processes or strategies - that seek solutions to society's needs and problems that are better than established alternatives. Their clear goal is the common good and improved well-being of people or nature.”

“The impact mechanisms of social innovations are diverse: they fundamentally change routines, resource flows, power relations or prevailing perceptions. They are social not only in their goals but also in their means: when solving problems and satisfying needs, they simultaneously change or create new social relations and cooperation, often give people a role in satisfying needs and thus improve the ability of individuals and society to act. Social innovations can be developed by public, private and third sector actors, users and communities, both as part of public services and outside of them.”

Sources:

Demos Helsinki (2022) Enemmän hyvää innovaatioista. Sosiaalisten innovaatioiden osaamiskeskuksen suunnittelu - hankkeen loppuraportti 10/2022. Työ- ja elinkeinoministeriön julkaisuja 2023:32.

Sosiaaliset innovaatiot lastensuojelussa – mitä niiden erityispiirteet ovat? SOILA-koordinaatiohankkeen ja Innokylän innovaatiokatsaus. Työpaperi 6/2024. THL. Helsinki (Julkari).

The Young Foundation (2012) Defining social innovation. Deliverable 1.1 Social Innovation Overview: A deliverable of the project: The theoretical, empirical and policy foundations for building social innovation in Europe TEPSIE European Commission – 7th Framework programme (290771)

The Open Book of Social Innovation (2010) and the recent Social Innovation Handbook (Ala-Kauhaluoma et al. 2025) present the spiral process of social innovations adopted by the SOILA coordination project and applied to support the implementation of the program, and its six development stages from determining the need for innovation through experimentation, establishment and scaling towards systemic change.

Figure 2. Development stages of social innovations Source: Murrey et al. (2010).

The innovation process with its different development stages consists of six stages:

1. Need and problems (prompts)

The first stage aims to list all goals and problems, the causes of which - not symptoms - are addressed.

2. Ideas (proposals)

The second stage collects suggestions and ideas for the challenges that have arisen in many different ways. Several different methods help to collect views and experiences from a wide range of information sources.

3. Experiments (prototypes)

The third stage involves the creation of prototypes and pilots, in which ideas are tested in practice. This stage is important for social innovations, because through iteration - by making trials and errors and learning from them - the expertise of different parties can be combined and tensions between different stakeholders can be resolved. At the same time, the functionality of the ideas in practice is ensured.

4. Sustaining

In the fourth stage, practical ideas are turned into everyday practice. In the public sector, this means influencing budgets, human resources and other factors that affect these - such as legislation.

5. Scaling

In the fifth stage, innovations introduced are spread across multiple organizations and industries. It utilizes a variety of strategies to spread and grow the innovation.

6. Systemic change

In the sixth stage, the goal is to change the system or system. Systemic change involves the interaction of multiple entities. Systemic change usually means a new change in policy and organizational structures, consisting of several small innovations. Systemic change usually involves changes in the public and private sectors over a longer period of time.

Sources:

Ala-Kauhaluoma, M., Hallamaa, M., Karvinen, K., Laurikainen, H., Patana, A. & Ramadan, F. 2025. Yhteiskunnallisten innovaatioiden käsikirja. Yhteiskunnallisten yritysten osaamiskeskus.

Murrey, R,. Gaulier-Grice, J. & Mulgan, G. (2010). The Open Book of Social Innovation. The Young Foundation, UK.

Taipale, Ilkka (toim.) 2017: 100 sosiaalista innovaatiota Suomesta: Kuinka Suomesta tuli Suomi — poliittisia, sosiaalisia ja arkipäivän keksintöjä. Into Kustannus Oy, Helsinki. 2017.

The Young Foundation (2012) Defining social innovation. Deliverable 1.1 Social Innovation Overview: A deliverable of the project: The theoretical, empirical and policy foundations for building social innovation in Europe TEPSIE European Commission – 7th Framework programme (290771)
The OECD Innovation Model (2018) can be used to support and assess the systematic use of innovation in the public sector. Innovation activities can contribute to the achievement of policy objectives, for example.

Figure 3. OECD innovation model, adapted from the Finnish Public Administration Innovation Declaration, Ministry of Finance 2019.

In the OECD innovation model, innovations are divided according to two characteristics:

How radical change is sought through the innovation process
- Enhancement-oriented innovations aimed at efficiency focus on improving current practices.
- Anticipatory radical innovations anticipate new and different opportunities.
- How managed innovation activity is
- Mission -oriented innovations increase systemic impact ("top down" led).
- Adaptive innovations adapt to new circumstances ("bottom up" led).
These four types of innovations can be briefly characterized as follows:
- Enhancement innovation can be characterized by its goals of improving existing things.
- Mission-oriented innovation aims to achieve a specific goal or result
- Adaptive innovation plays, tests and experiments with new approaches to respond to the changing operating environment and its needs.
- Anticipatory innovation aims to reduce uncertainty by exploring radically new or different possibilities to learn about how things could or should develop in the future. As new learning occurs, different possibilities become clearer and may also shape future priorities and commitments. (OECD Innovation Model 2018)
The OECD Innovation Model describes how operations can be developed to be more innovative.

Enhancement-oriented innovation operations can be developed to be more innovative
- By developing more concrete objectives.
- By developing new platforms, processes and protocols that support the new objective.
- By developing an ecosystem that achieves the parts of the task that the administration cannot control.
- By telling a story that resonates with the participants.
- By creating mechanisms for sharing best practices.
- By ensuring political commitment and pressure to activate actors.
- By investing in systemic thinking.
Adaptive innovation activities can be developed to be more innovative
- By encouraging the most innovative ideas and activities, in order to show that innovations are welcome. By letting all flowers bloom.
- By spreading innovative practices and their lessons, for example through mentoring, so that people are inspired and innovate in their own operating environment.
- By promoting opportunities for citizen feedback, so that it is known where changes are needed or where there is dissatisfaction with current activities.
- By allowing or creating flexible use of resources that can be allocated to finding something new.
- By clarifying what is the permissible level of time and risk spent on “bottom-up” projects
- By investing in “entrepreneurial” competence.
Anticipatory innovation can be developed to be more innovative:
- By committing to sustaining proactive radical innovation over the longer term.
- By securing the position of innovation in the organization so that the immediate priorities of other activities do not always take precedence.
- By supporting the integration of new knowledge, different perspectives and talents, the exploration of multiple possible options and investments that help shape desired futures.
- By creating space for continuous challenge and questioning.
- By challenging the basics: destroying the sense of permanence and perfection.
- By giving political or institutional protection to discussion and innovation.
- By building mechanisms that promote partnerships across disciplines and silos.
Task-focused, mission-driven innovation can be developed to be more innovative
- Through experimentation and stakeholder participation.
- Through a portfolio approach to project funding and management.
- Through new evaluation frameworks focusing on public value and spillover effects.
Sources:

OECD Innovation Model (2018):
Innovation Portfolios - Observatory of Public Sector Innovation
Murrey, Gaulier-Grice and Mulgan (2010, 12–13) link social innovations to systemic change, which aims to change the entire service system. System-level change means a change in policy and organizational structures, which consists of several clusters of small innovations. Systemic change arises as long-term changes in the public and private sectors, which are based on the interaction of several different entities.

Geels & Schot's innovation model (2007) also describes systemic change as the simultaneous interaction of several different factors. Breaking through the old way of operating requires pressure for change in the operating environment and a cluster of simultaneous innovative measures aimed at a new operating culture. In the world of social innovations, the focus is not on, for example, rule or structural changes, but on negotiating new shared meanings and experimenting with and establishing the ideas that emerge from them (Geels & Schot, 2007, 414–416).

Figure 4. Geels & Schot's innovation model (2002, 2007) describes systemic change from an old socio-technical system to a new system as a long-term transition through innovation clusters (Figure adapted from Jäppinen 2025).

Sources:

Geels, F. W. & Schot, J. (2007) Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways. Research Policy 36, 399–417.

Murrey, R., Gaulier-Grice, J. & Mulgan, G. (2010) The Open Book of Social Innovation. The Young Foundation, UK.