Cooperation of local social policy entities and social innovation systems in rural communes

The subject of the article is the cooperation of public institutions from rural communes with other entities of local social policy, its impact on the implementation of social innovations there and the possibility of creating local systems of social innovation. The results of quantitative research conducted (using the Internet survey technique) on a representative sample of rural communes are presented. The aim of the analysis was to: show the scale and forms of cooperation between public institutions from rural communes and entities of local social policy; verify whether it distinguishes those public institutions that implemented social innovations in cooperation with other entities; indicate whether it can be the basis for creating local systems of social innovation. The conducted study shows that social innovations were implemented by approx. 17% of the surveyed public institutions. About half of them cooperated in this area with another entity, which was facilitated by their previous cooperation. Social innovations appeared not only in communes where intersectoral cooperation was previously present, but it was this that was the premise for creating an innovation environment. Long-term activity of such an environment can influence the creation of a local system of social innovation. However, the interpretation of the study results in the context of the literature on the subject indicates that the rural non-governmental sector still seems too weak to generate the creation of these systems.