Introduction or preface

The social innovation paradigm recognizes enterprise' innovative and progressive potential to create new and sustainable solutions to the needs and challenges of modern age (ageing population and the changing nature of gender roles, poverty, migration processes, unemployment of the younger generations, the diffusion of flexible and precarious work, and guarantee equal rights). This article proposes a framework for analyzing the processes and changes generated through the interaction of organizations of social economy (service providers), local public institutions and civil society. This is achieved by integrating a critical analysis of literature with the results of a case study conducted on social cooperation in the city of Rome. The aim is placing "social welfare innovations" and social development into the social innovation paradigm providing a model of the paradigm of social innovation according to a social economy and human rights perspective