Social innovation is perceived as a collaborative response from civic society actors to societal challenges and as such is increasingly being recognised as a driver for sustainable development. Social innovation promotes civic values, particularly in marginalised rural areas that are often struggling with biophysical and market limits, as well as shortages of public funding. In order to identify diverging development paths (DDPs) for social innovation, in this article, we use two large sets of empirical material from the SIMRA research project. First, for meta-analyses of social innovation in diverse situations and contexts, we use 211 validated social innovation examples. Second, we rely on 11 in-depth cases to reflect on the contexts and dimensions of social innovation. The elaboration of conceptualisation and deductive analyses result in the creation of a typology of social innovation DDPs, with four DDPs identified and explained. The article provides an improved understanding of how social innovation emerges and develops and how to capture processes and resulting changes in marginalised rural areas in order to turn such areas' diversity into strengths. An important conclusion is that social innovation involves both local and external actors, yet cannot develop without specific internal local activity and local knowledge.

中文翻译：

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边缘化农村地区可持续发展的社会创新及其多元化发展路径

人们认为社会创新是公民社会行为者对社会挑战的一种协作反应，因此，人们日益认为社会创新是可持续发展的驱动力。社会创新促进公民价值，特别是在边缘化的农村地区，这些地区经常在生物物理和市场的限制以及公共资金短缺的情况下苦苦挣扎。为了确定社会创新的不同发展路径（DDP），在本文中，我们使用来自SIMRA研究项目的两套大型经验材料。首先，对于不同情况和环境下的社会创新的荟萃分析，我们使用211个经过验证的社会创新实例。其次，我们依靠11个深入的案例来反思社会创新的背景和规模。对概念化和演绎分析的详细阐述导致创建了社会创新DDP的类型，并确定并解释了四个DDP。本文对社会创新如何产生和发展以及如何把握边缘化农村地区的进程和由此产生的变化提供了更好的理解，以使这些地区的多样性转化为优势。一个重要的结论是，社会创新涉及本地和外部参与者，但是如果没有特定的内部本地活动和本地知识就无法发展。多样化成优势。一个重要的结论是，社会创新涉及本地和外部参与者，但是如果没有特定的内部本地活动和本地知识就无法发展。多样化成优势。一个重要的结论是，社会创新涉及本地和外部参与者，但是如果没有特定的内部本地活动和本地知识就无法发展。