Innowacje społeczne – innowacyjne instrumenty polityki społecznej w projektach finansowanych ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego
Social innovation – innovative instruments of social policy in projects financed by European Social Fund in Poland

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this article is to present an example of social innovation in projects financed by European Social Fund (ESF) and discuss problems related to using experiences of social innovation in the process of systemic change in social policy. Social innovation is defined as a new and better way of resolving social problems. The article is a part of broader author’s research on social innovation in social policy in Poland. The theoretic point of research is related to the theory of the utility-based evaluation proposed by the team of the Centre for Evaluation and Analysis of Public Policies of Jagiellonian University in Cracow. The first part includes definitions of social innovation and detailed description of the process of social innovation. The second part of the paper outlines the results of the case study on family’s assistant described as a social innovation in social services in Poland in 2008. The family’s assistant model was prepared during innovative project in 2004–2008 (in the EQUAL Programme). In the third part the author discusses the role of social innovation in the process of systemic change in social policy. The author believes that social innovations occur in the ESF projects but their potential is not properly used in the social policy. In conclusion, the author emphasizes that the ESF project could be a kind of live laboratory for systematic change in social policy. She proposes to improve the management of knowledge about social innovation and describes assumptions for the system of diffusion of social innovation.

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