Examples of social innovation practices in Russia

The Russian Agency of Information Society Development (ISEDT RAS) implemented the project ‘Timurites of Information Society’ in the Omsk Oblast. Students and pupils convey basic skills of computer literacy to target groups who are not familiar with information technology. Around 90 persons completed ‘Cyber Learning of the Basics’, a programme, developed during the project. 38 volunteers and 16 supervisors of volunteer groups supported them.
An example of a social care project is the ‘Cultural and Leisure Center’ ‘Care’, which is implemented in the Vologda Oblast. Elderly citizens of the city of Vologda are provided with cultural services and sport opportunities. In order to meet the needs of the senior citizens in socialization and self-realization, six branches were opened in the surroundings of the city of Vologda. Central aim of the project is the social inclusion of the elderly. Obtaining IT-knowledge is included to the offered measures. Therefore computer classes like ‘Grandmother – online. Grandfather – online’, ‘Electronic citizen’ are organised. The intergenerational exchange is also in the focus in the context of the project ‘Generations in touch’. Generally, through the project-specific activities the elderly are actively involved in the public life of the city and the processes of civil society formation.
‘Mama Works’ is a project in the field employment. It is implemented by the ‘Way to Life Charity Foundation for Social Support and Protection of Citizens’ (Charity Foundation ‘Way to Life’). After the termination of maternity leave there are several factors which impede going back to work: kindergarten waiting lists; long distances to work, loss of qualification during the maternity leave, etc. The ‘Mama Works’ project is aimed at solving these problems by offering a couple of measures: trainings and seminars for women who are finishing maternity leave, psychological support and organisation of meetings with psychologists, cooperation with institutions of higher education and centers for additional education for young mothers, etc.

Positioning of social innovations on political level

The current innovation policy of the Russian Federation focuses primary on engineering and technology. A range of normative acts of the government underline this position. For example, ‘The Priority directions of development of science, technologies and engineering in the Russian Federation’ do not consider studies in the field of social sciences and humanities as priority directions of science development.
The ‘Strategy for Innovation Development of the Russian Federation for the time period up to 2020’ contains a section about innovations in the public sector and social sphere. However, the goal of the innovation policy, which is carried out in the public sector and social sphere, still focuses on the introduction of engineering and technology innovation.
The state programme ‘Development of science and technologies’ also considers investigations in the fields of economic development, aerospace, energy, transport, construction, preventing emergency situations, etc. as the main objectives of the state science and technology policy.
Generally, Russia does not give much attention to social innovations. These innovations do not aim at making profit and are oriented towards achieving positive results in the intangible, spiritual sphere.
Nevertheless, there is an active work going on in the regions for the purpose of development of this sphere of innovation activities. On federal level social innovation projects are being implemented by the ‘Foundation for Regional Social Programs’. ‘Our future’, a nonprofit organisation, focuses on supporting the development of small entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the ‘Foundation for Support of Children in Difficult Life Situations’ operates since 2009 on the federal level. It created a single centralized base of social innovation projects. In 2013 74 socially innovation projects were implemented.

Reasons of emergence of social innovations

The Russian society struggles with several unsolved social problems. A central one is the ongoing segregation of the society due to an increasing income inequality. The degree of inequality can be assessed by the values of the decile coefficient and the Gini coefficient. According to the data of the ‘Federal Office of State Statistics’ the Gini coefficient grew from 0.289 to 0.420 over the period from 1992 to 2012.
The situation becomes worse by the rather high unemployment level. For example, this indicator remains quite high and accounts for 5.9% in Russia. Unemployment as a factor that impedes the income growth, aggravates the social differentiation of the population, and therefore, increases the social tension. Additionally the high crime rate, alcoholism, tobacco smoking, drug addiction and homeless children make the situation more complicated. These challenges have an extremely negative impact on the country’s economic development as well. In order to overcome these tendencies it is necessary to search for new innovation ways to solve them.

Influence of social innovations on the society

In Russia the development and implementation of social innovations are considered to be one of the measures to overcome negative tendencies of socio-economic development. They contribute to increase the life quality and support social consolidation, which explains the topicality of the discussed subject. Science and innovation activities are the most important factors that determine economic and social development. The implementation of social innovations takes place in close interaction with the social and cultural environment.

Meaning of social innovations to ISEDT RAS

Studying the population’s living standards and lifestyles has been one of the main objectives of ISEDT RAS since its foundation 25 years ago. In this field it conducts research on demographic development and public health problems, socio-economic inequality, economic aspects of education and labor force, as well as on social and cultural development on regional level.
Social innovations are the most efficient instrument for solving existing societal problems. In this connection, for the last three years ISEDT RAS has been studying problems of the theory and the practice of social innovations. For the institute this is a central priority and one of the most promising areas of scientific research.

Authors: Svetlana Terebova, Ilia Kuzmin, Aleksandra Shabunova
Institute: The Russian Agency of Information Society Development (ISEDT RAS)