Italy is a country with a long and very strong tradition of the welfare state. It is a country where the historical tradition of the Catholic Church, and a strong left movement have shaped many different ways to face societal problems. In fact, Italy has one of the largest number of social cooperatives in the world and, following the milestone of law 381/91, this model of coops has already had 20 years of life.

Social innovation is time and context specific. That means it can mean different things in different context. What might not seem innovative in one country, may be ground breaking in another. The political and cultural background is important to understand. There are also a wide variety of organisations involved in this field, each have different perspectives. So, the purpose of this page is to demonstrate a variety of views on what social innovation means to different kinds of organisations in Italy.