Today, many rural regions in Europe face challenges such as a limited provision of public and private services, a lack of qualified job offers, little possibilities for higher education and an on-going loss of residents, among them many young and well skilled people. At the same time a new type of actor appears who aims to counteract societal challenges and to develop novel solution. Social enterprises are promising but often neglected drivers of social innovation in structurally weak rural regions that seek to tackle social problems and to stabilise and improve the living conditions in these regions. If rural social enterprises would tap their full potential they could make a significant contribution to equal working and living conditions, social inclusion and change in rural Europe. However, reports show that social enterprises still lack specialised trainings and education, a supporting infrastructure and recognition. Against this background, RurInno aims at 1) strengthening the skills and the innovative capacity of social entrepreneurs operating in rural regions, 2) improving the knowledge of how social innovations are implemented in rural regions and 3) raising awareness of social entrepreneurship in rural regions in order to foster enabling environments for their activities.
The research shows that rural social enterprises effectively address social challenges. They interconnect remote regions with supra-regional networks and institutions on other spatial scales. In doing so, they mobilize new ideas, extended resources and support for rural communities that would otherwise be hardly available. Innovation in rural regions is often based on the re-contextualisation and adaptation of ideas and knowledge. Finding innovative solutions for social challenges is hardly an endogenous process but takes into account knowledge and solutions existing in other contexts or places. Social enterprises adopt and adjust them according to the needs in the respective rural regions. However, we also observe barriers that restrict rural social enterprises in tapping their full potential. In many member states a legal status is missing that enables social enterprises to combine entrepreneurial activities and producing social benefit. Funding schemes often leave little room for creativity in the provision of services. Thus, social enterprises depending on public funds threaten to loose innovation spirit.
