Social Innovation for the Socio-Labour Integration of Refugees in New Host Countries: The Spanish Case

1 Social innovation for the socio-labour integration of refugees in new host countries: the Spanish case Carmen Guzmána, Francisco J. Santosa, Lidia Valientea* and Francisco J. Santolayab aDepartment of Applied Economics I, University of Seville, Spain; b Department of Social Psychology, University of Seville, Spain *Corresponding author: [email protected] Guzmán, C. Santos, F.J. Valiente, L. and Santolaya, F (2023) Social innovation for the socio-labour integration of refugees in new host countries: the Spanish case, Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, Latest articles. https://doi.org/10.1080/19420676.2023.2275132 Published online: 01 Nov 2023 2 Social innovation for the socio-labour integration of refugees in new host countries: the Spanish case Abstract In recent years, southern European countries have experienced a surge in the arrival of refugees and asylum seekers, which has intensified due to the war in Ukraine. In this scenario, the public sector and non-profit and voluntary organisations (NPVOs) play a leading role by introducing new initiatives to respond to the vast number of applicants and facilitating their socio-labour integration into these new host societies. This article aims to identify and analyse social innovations developed by the public sector and NPVOs while paying particular attention to the new governance regarding the collaboration between these two types of institutions. Having taken Spain as our case study, we focus on the leading organisations of the National Asylum System, composed of three NPVOs and one public institution. Our findings show that the oversaturated situation in the new host countries has stimulated social innovation, especially within NPVOs, albeit with close collaboration with the public sector and other local actors. Keywords: Refugees; Socio-labour integration; Social innovation; NPVOs. Introduction Political instability and other factors, such as natural disasters, are causing millions worldwide to be displaced. This figure has passed from fewer than 40 million in 2000 to more than 80 million in 2020 (UNHCR 2020). Especially in recent years, refugees and asylum seekers make up a high proportion of those figures, growing from 16.2 million in 2010 to 24.5 million in 2015 and 26.4 million in 2020 (UNHCR, 2015, 2020). From the beginning of the 21st century, political conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and, more recently, Ukraine have intensified this ever-increasing number of refugees. In this latter case, more than 4 million people crossed the Ukrainian border 3 into other European countries during the first month of the Russian aggression (UNHCR 2022). Northern European countries have traditionally provided a principal destination for the refugees and asylum seekers collective, mainly due to their high national incomes and outstanding commitment to human rights, freedom, and democracy. However, since 2010, southern European countries, such as Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece, have also become new destinations for this specific type of migrant (Valenta et al. 2019) mainly due to disagreement between northern European countries regarding how to receive such a high number of asylum seekers (Stockemer et al. 2019). Nevertheless, hosting this increasing flow of refugees is challenging for these southern European countries. They generally suffered from growing inequality and poverty, high unemployment rates, and job insecurity before becoming new host countries (Eurostat 2020a). Furthermore, they need more experience and an adequate public institutional framework to attend to the needs of refugees. However, public authorities and diverse organisations of society are focusing on solving the problems of refugees and asylum seekers by promoting their socio-labour integration through a wide range of measures, most of which are related to the fields of employment, education, health, housing, and social cohesion (Ager and Strand 2008; Migration Policy Group 2020; UHNCR 2013). In this context, specialised institutions, generally non-profit and voluntary organisations (NPVOs), assume an essential role in social assistance (Galera et al. 2018). However, they are carrying out their role in very diverse ways with significant variations within countries, depending, among other factors, on the organisation of the welfare state and the different legal framework in each host country (Galera et al. 2018; Patuzzi et al. 2019; Oliver et al. 2020). Furthermore, given that NPVOs need more 4 resources to deploy their measures, they must adapt to the circumstances quickly by developing their capacity for innovation. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) defines innovation as “the creation of value for refugees by introducing innovative solutions and doing things better” (UNHCR 2023). This definition connects with that of social innovation, which is identified as new social processes and products to achieve the social inclusion of excluded groups and promote their well-being by addressing market failures and providing public goods (Grabbe et al. 2018). Therefore, innovation in the field of social assistance to refugees can be considered social innovation. According to research, social innovation implies the creation of new products and processes with three crucial objectives: to meet social needs, to improve social relationships and cohesion and, finally, to transform society’s values and attitudes (Moulaert et al. 2017). Furthermore, research recognises that to implement social innovation, a new way of organising the collaboration between the state and civil society is required; that is, new governance is needed (Campomori and Casula 2022). In this regard, a bottom-up approach and a co-production process are essential for creating social innovations (Pestoff 2012). Specifically, the contribution of citizens and the beneficiaries of those social innovations are necessary (McMullin 2021). Therefore, given the previous arguments and bearing in mind the significant difficulties that refugees encounter when they arrive in new host countries, the objective of this research involves the identification and analysis of the main trends of social innovations developed by NPVOs and the public sector in those countries, while selecting the Spanish Asylum System as a specific case study. To this end, we will also pay special attention to the way of governance of this asylum system and examine how 5 interactions and collaboration between the various institutions of the system (both public and private) are linked to the creation of social innovation. Although some studies have explored the case of Spain in the field of social innovation (De Wit et al. 2019; Rey-Garcia et al. 2018), its asylum system has not previously been analysed from the viewpoint of social innovation in the field of socio-labour integration of refugees, with particular attention to the governance to achieve this integration. This is particularly interesting because, in the context of the 2015 refugee crisis, the Spanish government reformed the national asylum system and expanded the number of NPVOs attending to refugees. Furthermore, as previous studies point out, the success of the collaboration in the field of refugee integration among different local actors depends on each context since each host country has its specific characteristics (Campomori and Ambrosini 2020; Campomori and Casula 2022; Galera et al. 2018; Humphris 2014). Therefore, the analysis of the case of the Spanish Asylum System deserves special attention. Consequently, to meet the objectives mentioned above, after a review of the literature regarding the main topic of this research (refugees, social innovation, labour integration, and the role of the state and NPVOs in these areas), an empirical analysis is carried out through a qualitative methodology based on a triangulation process, which involves multiple sources of information, such as websites, public reports and personal interview sinter with the people in charge of those entities (Carter et al. 2014; Jentoft and Olsen 2019). Specifically, the analysis is focused on four organisations that currently constitute the backbone of the Spanish Asylum System: three NPVOs (The Spanish Refugee Aid Commission known as CEAR, The Spanish Catholic Migration Commission Association called ACCEM, and the Spanish Red Cross) and one public organisation (the Refugee Reception Centres, CARs). These four organisations were 6 selected because they composed the old Ariadna Network in the country; that is, they are the leading and most expert organisations in the refugees’ integration in Spain. Finally, regarding the main contributions of this article, firstly, we believe that it constitutes one of the few attempts to link the research field of socio-labour integration of refugees with the field of social innovation in the case of new host countries and, more specifically, in the case of Spain. Secondly, it contributes towards increasing the knowledge regarding not only the significant role played by NPVOs in an unexpected situation but also their weaknesses and potentialities and the new governance of the asylum system regarding the collaboration between these organisations and the state for the development of social innovation. Theoretical framework The socio-labour integration of refugees The socio-labour integration concept The 1951 UNHCR Convention and Protocol relating to the status of refugees defines refugees as people who are outside the country of their nationality and are unable to avail themselves of the protection of that country because they are persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership to a particular social group, or political opinion (UNHCR 2011). Specific literature on this kind of migrant states that refugees and asylum seekers must tackle various obstacles once they arrive in the host country, such as cultural adaptation, finding a job, and renting a house (Yakushko et al. 2008; Campion 2018). By considering these problems, both governments and NPVOs of host countries have put a set of initiatives into practice to facilitate the successful resettlement of refugees in the host societies. This set of initiatives strives to promote the so-called 7 process of socio-labour integration, whose conceptualisation, not only in the case of refugees but also for economic migrants, remains highly diffused. In fact, academics, institutions, and politicians have yet to establish a consensus regarding socio-labour integration and the areas it covers (Puma et al. 2018). In an effort towards synthesis, Ager and Strand (2008) reviewed all the literature regarding socio-labour integration and defined a conceptual framework for successful socio-labour integration. In this respect, these authors delimited four areas to fulfil when handling the integration of refugees: the first is related to the Geneva Convention and its specification of social rights of refugees in terms of employment, housing, health, and education (UNHCR 2011); the second is linked to the rules and norms regarding citizenship and rights; the third includes the social connections within and those between groups inside the community; and the fourth area is connected with the barriers, such as language and culture differences, that refugees have to overcome for these relationships to become favourable. Along these lines, and in terms of the sociolabour integration of migrants, Cherti and McNeil (2012) differentiated between the “big issues” to cover, such as employment and housing, and the “everyday integration” issues, such as leisure, shopping, and consumption. Apart from these contributions, it is necessary to emphasise that various studies have striven to evaluate this integration process. Some such studies also constitute support for the understanding of the concept of socio-labour integration and the indicators or fields involved therein, either from the viewpoint of migrants (Migration Policy Group 2020; OECD 2012; Bijl and Verweij 2012) or refugees (Puma et al. 2018; Lichtenstein and Puma 2019) in EU and OECD countries. Although the methodologies of these contributions differ, most coincide in a large proportion of the fields included in their analysis: employment, education, housing, health, and social inclusion and 8 cohesion, among others. Similarly, the “UNHCR 2013 Report” also provides a reference for analysing the resettlement of refugees in the host society. Employment, education and language, social integration, social inclusion, active citizenship, and housing are fields of interest analysed and taken as indicators of socio-labour integration. It, therefore, seems appropriate to base the study of the socio-labour integration of migrants and refugees on those common elements that academics and institutions have widely accepted. All these elements are areas of aid for social welfare programs in high-income countries where the state plays a key role. Failures in the implementation of refugee integration policies As stated previously, the socio-labour integration of refugees implies intervention in four different areas: employment, housing, health, and education (UNHCR 2011). In this regard, the State has usually played a relevant role in designing inclusive integration policies (Bacher et al. 2019), whose success or failure is closely linked to the feelings and attitudes of the host society towards refugee collectives (Callens and Meuleman 2017; Ferris 2020; Przytuła and Matusz 2021). In this regard, when the integration policy fails, social relations between refugees and the host society result in social conflict, which puts pressure on the State to apply coercive policies toward refugees. In contrast, successful integration policies have a positive effect, such as an improvement in the migrants’ and refugees’ sense of belonging to the host society and the generation of positive attitudes in the host society towards refugees (Ferris 2020). Evidence of the adverse effects of an unsuccessful integration policy is when refugees (and other migrants) are considered, by the host society, to be responsible for higher fiscal costs to cover the expenses of the provision of public social services, such 9 as education and health services. In contrast, in the case of successful integration policies, a sign of their positive effects on the host society is when refugees are seen as taxpayers who contribute towards the financing of public social services (Fasani et al. 2022; Ferris 2020). Unfortunately, the state integration policies for refugees have shown significant failures in recent years. The reason is that public administrations need more time and resources to adapt their administrative procedures to the high number of refugees received in the host societies. Accorinti and Wislocki (2016) demonstrate that the bottleneck caused by this situation has sometimes led to excessive bureaucratisation, lengthening refugees' stay in reception centres and delaying their socio-labour integration. Furthermore, Fasani et al. (2022) conclude that oversaturation pushes states to implement inefficient policies that negatively affect the time and quality of the integration of refugees. Therefore, one consequence of these governmental policy failures involves mobilising private organisations, such as non-profit and voluntary organisations (NVPOs), which have to develop social innovations to respond to the growing needs of refugees. Social innovations for the integration of refugees The social innovation concept Unlike business innovation, social innovation is not motivated by profit maximisation but by social goals (Mulgan 2012; Phills et al. 2008). However, despite the consensus regarding its relevance in addressing social problems, a generally accepted definition of social innovation has yet to be made available (Moulaert et al. 2017; Testi et al. 2019). 16 Table 1: Some indicators related to the socio-economic level and welfare state of new host countries (2019) Spain Portugal Italy Greece EU-27 average GDP per capita (euros) 26,440 20,840 30,080 17,100 31,310 Unemployment rate (% of the population in the labour force) 14.1% 6.7% 9.9% 17.9% 6.8% Expenditure on social protection (% GDP) 24.1% 24% 29.2% 25.5% 28% Public expenditure on education (% GDP) 4.08% 4.61% 4.1% 3.59% 4.7% Healthcare expenditure by governments schemes (% GDP) 6.09% 5.56% 6.37% 2.24% 2.79% Source: Eurostat data In this context, the circumstances mentioned above have triggered suitable coordination between different levels of government and other local actors, such as NPVOs, capitalist firms, citizens, and other refugee associations, that is, there is a new governance that involves various local actors (OECD 2018a). In fact, the refugee crisis has generated a collective social responsibility that has increased the participation of volunteers and NPVOs in helping refugees and asylum seekers (Galera et al. 2018). In this respect, for instance, research has shown that the relationships at the horizontal level between local actors in Italy are of even greater significance than the multilevel governance, which is produced between the central government and other governments at the regional and local levels (Campomori and Ambrosini 2020). In Portugal, institutions aware of the need for this collaboration between the state and other local actors created a working group in 2015 that involved municipalities and NVPOs, in addition to the central government, to carry out agreements for the reception and integration of refugees (OECD 2018a). However, several studies have demonstrated that, although a collaborative process took place between the different levels, the role of the state was limited to the design of the reception system, while civil organisations were in charge of implementing social integration actions for refugees, such as in the 17 case of Greece (Bagavos and Kourachanis 2022; Galera et al. 2018; Kourachanis 2019). Notwithstanding the above, other research found that the success of the collaboration of various local actors for the integration of refugees depends on each context, as everyone has specific characteristics (Campomori and Ambrosini 2020; Campomori and Casula 2022; Galera et al. 2018; Humphris 2014). In this respect, what is helpful for one country is not necessarily valid for another territory. Table 2: Migrant Integration in Spain (2018) (as a percentage of the group) Indicator National UE- 28 average Nationals in Spain Non-EU-born living in Spain Median Equivalised net income ( €) 18,363 15,915 8,868 AROPE 21.8 24.1 53.7 Homeownership 68.3 76.6 24.9 Overcrowding rate 17.9 4.4 14.8 Housing cost overburden rate 9.7 7.1 37.2 Employment rate 73.7 67.6 60.0 Unemployment rate 6.2 14.8 23.8 Source: Eurostat data In the specific case of Spain, although some studies analyse how volunteers contribute to the development and diffusion of social innovations (De Wit et al. 2019) or how these social innovations are produced in social services involving different actors (Rey- Garcia et al. 2018), there are no previous studies on how social innovations are generated in the specific field of socio-labour integration of refugees, focusing on the governance that takes place in these processes. In this research, the focus is not only on product and process innovation, including the impact on society's attitudes and values but also on innovation related to governance, as there is a gap in the specific literature in this context. As we will see, the case analysed in the empirical section, the Spanish case, is of particular interest because the asylum system is formed by an institution of the public sector (the Refugee Reception Centre - CAR-) and non-profit and voluntary organisations (NPVOs) (see Table 3). 18 Methodology Spain as a case study of a new host country Among the new host countries, Spain has become one of the most important alternative destinations for asylum seekers, alongside more traditional destinations such as France and Germany. Although Spain still has significant socioeconomic weaknesses, its economic convergence regarding Northern European countries and the consolidation of its fledgling democracy have transformed the country. For these reasons, this research has chosen Spain as a specific case study of new host country. Regarding the weaknesses noted above, some indicators related to the socioeconomic level, such as the unemployment rate (14.1%) and GDP per capita (26,440 euros), show that Spain has a worse level than the European Union of 27 (with an average of 6.8% and 31,310 euros respectively). In the same vein, some welfare indicators show that the Spanish system could be improved since its expenditure on social protection is 24% of GDP, while in the European Union of 27, it reaches 28%. Similarly, public spending on education is lower than the EU-27 average (4% of GDP in Spain and 4.7% in the EU-27). Spain stands out only in the case of public expenditure on health, with 6.09% of GDP, well above the European average (2.79%) (Table 1). Despite these socioeconomic weaknesses of Spain, this country has received an increasing number of immigrants since the beginning of the 21st century. Among these immigrants, those looking for protection via international asylum have undergone a rapid increase since 2013 (2,526%, from a mere 4,485 to 117,800 people in 2019) (Figure 1), to the extent that in 2019 it overtook Italy (43,770 asylum seekers) and narrowed the gap with Germany (165,615 asylum seekers) (Eurostat 2019). As in other European countries, Spain receives many asylum applications from countries at war, 19 such as Ukraine and Syria, but also from diverse Latin American countries, such as Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia, due to their cultural links. Table 3: Case studies and main characteristics Name of the organisation Spanish Red Cross CEAR ACCEM CARs Year of creation 1864 1979 1950 1980s Who founded the organisation Citizens Citizens Catholic Church Public Sector Legal Form NPVO NPVO NPVO Belonging to Public Sector Current Target Population Vulnerable Collectives Asylum Seekers and Refugees People at risk of exclusion Asylum Seekers Decision-Making General Assembly General Assembly General Assembly Technical team Financing Public and minimum from the private sector (5% or less) Public and minimum from the private sector (5% or less) Public and minimum from the private sector (5% or less) Public Employees 11,808 713 776 Approx. 25 in each CAR Volunteers 197,061 864 928 Occasionally Available positions for refugees in Phase I 2,321 1,457 1,501 396 Source: Organisation websites and Ministry of Labour, Migration, and Social Security. Figure 1: Asylum applicants in Spain, 2013-2019 (number of people) Source: Authors’ own based on Eurostat data 0 20000 40000 60000 80000 100000 120000 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 First-time asylum applicants Positive decisions Asylum application rejected Total decisions 20 The number of positive decisions granting asylum in Spain remained very low until 2018 (2,895 positive decisions in this year) in comparison to that in other European countries such as Germany (75,940), France (32,725) and Italy (30,670). However, in 2019, with 38,420 positive decisions, Spain outperformed most of these countries except for Germany (70,320) in this respect (28,140 for France and 18,375 for Italy) (Eurostat 2019). This indicates that the asylum system in Spain has responded to the new circumstances in a very short timeframe despite its lack of experience in this field. Furthermore, it should be borne in mind that the Spanish economy still presents several significant weaknesses in terms of social exclusion, housing, and employment (see Table 2), which hinders the easy integration of such a high number of migrants. In this respect, the State and civil society, through NPVOs, have taken on an active role. The integration policy of the Spanish central government has been leading a specific approach in line with Law 12/2009 on the right to asylum and subsidiary protection. Furthermore, the Ministry of Employment (MEYSS) designed an individualised itinerary of integration with a duration of 12 months (general itinerary) and another of 18 months (itinerary for situations of a more vulnerable nature. Both are divided into three main phases (reception, integration, and autonomy) plus a short prephase of assessment and referral (MEYSS 2016). Under these legal parameters, the National Asylum System (NAS) in Spain is composed, on the one hand, of a network of institutions (a public institution and diverse NPVOs) that work with all the asylum seekers who arrive in Spain towards their sociolabour integration and, on the other hand, of financial resources provided by the Ministry of Employment (MEYSS) and managed by those institutions to design and implement specific integration measures (MEYSS 2016). 21 Sample: institutions analysed Due to the rapid growth in the number of asylum applications in the crisis of 2015, the Spanish government reformed the initial institutional network for attending to refugees (named the Ariadna Network) and expanded the number of NPVOs participating in the individualised itinerary designed for integration. The links and communications between the diverse institutions of the new network and the central government are established not in a personal way through formal meetings in an executive commission as initially carried out but instead through computer procedures. The institutions of the NAS use these procedures to register all the activities refugees carry out during the individual integration itinerary. In this way, the central government can also ascertain the specific situation of all refugees in the asylum programme and can assign the refugees to activities organised in various NPVOs whenever necessary so that the individualised itinerary is successfully completed. Nevertheless, due to the good relations established between the institutions which belonged to the initial Ariadna Network, informal contact continues between their prominent representatives through which information is shared, and help can be provided when necessary. In this regard, although the target population of this study is composed of the diverse number of entities which participate in the National Asylum System, this research takes explicitly the four institutions included in the old Ariadna Network as its sample to study since these institutions possess more experience and constitute the leaders in the integration of refugees. These four entities are, on the one hand, a public institution named CAR (Spanish acronym for Centro de Acogida de Refugiados or Refugee Reception Centre) and, on the other hand, three private non-profit and voluntary organisations (NPVOs) 22 catalogued by the Spanish law as being of ‘public interest' and subsidised by the MEYSS (central government). The three NVPOs are CEAR (Spanish acronym for Comisión Española de Ayuda al Refugiado), The Spanish Red Cross, and ACCEM (Spanish acronym for Asociación Comisión Católica Española de Migraciones). The Refugee Reception Centre (CAR) helps refugees exclusively during the reception phase of the individualised itinerary of integration (6 months) (MEYSS 2016). Refugees lodged in its centres must subsequently be assigned to one of the NPVOs at the end of the six months as part of the integration programme. However, NPVOs assist the refugees and asylum seekers in the reception phase, complementing the work carried out by the CAR in this respect and the other two phases of the itinerary (integration and autonomy). Moreover, the three NPVOs are the entities which provide the first contact with the refugees when they arrive in Spain since they constitute the organisations authorised by the MEYSS for the preliminary assessment and referral (the pre-phase) before beginning the three phases of the itinerary. The main characteristics of the four institutions studied are presented in Table 3. Specifically, one of the most critical aspects of the three NPVOs is that public funds principally finance them. This means that these private entities are highly dependent on government policies and need more self-finance, which implies a significant weakness in periods of economic downturn. Governance also provides an interesting point. In the case of the three NPVOs, the decision-making is democratic through the General Assembly. Method A qualitative research method was applied. Researchers have supported qualitative methods since they focus on understanding the reasons and subjective aspects of the reality under study (Perren and Ram 2004). Specifically, data has been collected from 23 the four institutions of the sample through triangulation, that is, through multiple and diverse sources of information (Carter et al. 2014; Jentoft and Olsen 2019). In this regard, data was collected, firstly, from the websites of the organisations, secondly, from documents published by these organisations, and lastly, from personal interviews with the managers in charge of the four institutions analysed. This latter source was necessary due to the limited information available regarding their innovative initiatives in the other two sources. The information collected was analysed through a thematic analysis method to identify, investigate and report patterns within qualitative data (Braun and Clarke 2006; Vaismoradi, Turunen, and Bondas 2013). All these processes took place in 2019, and we received ethical approval from all organisations for participating in the research and treating all the information provided. The interviews with the managers followed a semi-structured method, with open-ended questions, no pre-prepared answer categories, and giving place to spontaneous questions along the conversation to get the information required for our research. Since the objective of this survey involved ascertaining the innovative activities in the socio-labour integration of refugees, the questions were designed following the previously developed literature review. Specifically, the questions considered the five areas of integration according to Ager and Strand (2008) and UNHCR (2013), that is, housing, education, employment, health, and social inclusion and, in addition, considered the types of social innovations as laid out by Moulaert et al. (2017), that is, product and process-based social innovations to cover social needs, to improve social relationships, and to create social change. The answers obtained provided not only an outline of the profile of the entities and an insight into what these entities do in their regular activities but also what specific social innovations they were introducing. 24 Regarding how the four interviews were carried out, the first step involved contacting the managers in charge of the local headquarters of the four institutions established in the Spanish city of Seville and setting an appointment in each institution at a specific date. The reason for choosing the headquarters of Seville is highly relevant to the objectives of this research. Seville is the largest city in Southern Spain and one of the four Spanish cities with a local office of the CAR (the public institution) and local offices of the three NPVOs of the sample. The fact that Seville has local offices of the four institutions analysed offered the possibility to study how collaboration between the public institution (CAR) and the three NPVOs took place because the four institutions work together with the refugees who arrive in the city. Subsequently, due to the semi-structured nature of the interview, the person interviewed was encouraged to speak freely to gather the maximum information from the organisation on their integration measures and strategy. Therefore, the meeting went beyond the initial questions' limits, making it possible to reach a deeper understanding of their activities regarding the socio-labour integration of refugees and the social innovations implemented. Results According to the information obtained through the various sources, only those actions that brought new elements to solve the social problem of refugees were considered social innovations, thereby dispensing with those actions that formed the regular activity of the organisations analysed. Nevertheless, before going in-depth with these social innovations, it should be highlighted that all managers interviewed agreed that the Ariadna Network was a major social innovation. It was created in 2008 through an agreement between the Spanish government (via the MEYSS), the CARs, and the three NPVOs, and its specific objective was to promote the socio-labour integration of 25 refugees and asylum seekers. The network had an executive commission chaired by a representative of the MEYSS, in which the main decisions were adopted in cooperation with the organisations. In this way, a new governance process was created based on the collaboration of the different institutions, which can be identified as a process-based social innovation. In the words of the own actors, “this new system lets communicating very easily with the other participants and exchange information very rapidly” (ACCEM manager), as well as “making decisions more adapted to the particular circumstances of the moment and more rapidly” (referring, for example, to the cases of the arrival of refugees’ applicants in mass in a concrete time) (Red Cross manager). Furthermore, as a result of this new kind of governance, a co-production process occurs since, as explained below, other local actors participate in the actions developed, such as citizens, private firms, and even refugees and asylum seekers. We now highlight and explain the social innovations (SI) identified, and differentiate between process-based innovations, product-based innovations, and innovations of both simultaneously, and also indicate the objectives they pursue, that is, to meet a social need, to improve social relationships, and to transform society’s attitudes and values (Table 4). A) Social innovations in processes The first social innovation identified is the accreditation of the three NPVOs as the official mediators in the labour market by the public sector. This facilitates matching labour demand (local firms) with labour suppliers (refugees and asylum seekers) while the socio-labour integration of refugees and other migrants is met. This initiative can be considered an SI because “it constitutes a new way to integrate refugees into a previously inexistent labour market” (Red Cross manager). In this context, the role of 32 By applying a qualitative method based on a triangulation process, we have studied four institutions of the Spanish National Asylum System (three private organisations (NPVOs) and one public). The results enable the following conclusions to be extracted. First, leadership in creating social innovations lies in private organisations (NPVOs) more than in the public sector. This seems logical since these organisations are in direct contact with the refugees and asylum seekers throughout the whole integration process and are consequently more aware of their needs. However, despite designing the legal and official integration process, the public sector only participates directly in the first phase of the integration process (reception), which is why their direct presence is more limited compared to private organisations. This conclusion is in line with other studies that demonstrate that the public sector plays a secondary role in refugee integration (Bagavos and Kourachanis 2022; Galera et al. 2018). Therefore, the public sector is not expected to play a more significant role in creating SI for refugee integration. Second, process-based social innovations proliferate more than product-based social innovations in the socio-labour integration of refugees. This also seems to be logical since these innovations respond to the new emerging governance for specific social needs (such as access to employment and housing), whereby this governance is based on the collaboration of NPVOs, the State, and other local actors, such as the collectives affected, civil society, and local firms and their entrepreneurs. Consequently, new coproduction processes take place, which promote new ways of covering refugees’ needs. This conclusion supports previous studies highlighting the importance of this kind of governance and these co-creation processes in creating social innovations (Campomori and Casula 2022; McMullin 2021; Pestoff 2012). 33 While bearing conclusions one and two in mind, we can take as a third conclusion that social innovations in Spain for refugee integration are developed under a bottom-up approach. In this respect, the initiatives are promoted and produced by local actors of a different nature (NPVOs, firms, refugees). This conclusion supports findings from other European case studies on trends in social innovations in refugee integration, where most SI are developed under the collaboration scheme between different actors (Edwards- Schachter et al. 2012; Humphris 2014). Therefore, this kind of SI is developed by following what is called a “community-building” approach (Patuzzi et al. 2019). Four, the final aim of social innovation in the refugee sector in Spain is mainly improving social relationships, such as initiatives focused on employers and famous people, which shows, as stated in other studies, that the attitudes and feelings of the host society are the key to the success of integration initiatives (Callens and Meuleman 2017; Ferris 2020; Przytuła and Matusz 2021). In this way, social innovations with this objective will try to change the social system and values in the long term, that is, these social innovations will ultimately have a transformationalist purpose (Anheier et al. 2014). Five, the market-oriented approach plays a crucial role in social innovations for the socio-labour integration of refugees. In this respect, the creation of social enterprises by NPVOs stands out. These enterprises strive to integrate refugees and migrants through training and give them employment directly to overcome the obstacles presented by the system. These social enterprises aim to be financially viable and sustainable for not dependent on public resources. This need to be sustainable and autonomous in refugee initiatives is also present in other cases analysed, such as that in Ashley Community Housing in the United Kingdom, which, faced with the economic cuts from the 34 government, found alternative funding through the Islamic system called “Sharia” (Patuzzi et al. 2019). Finally, and related to the previous idea, most social innovations analysed in this research for refugees’ integration exist in other higher-income European countries. Thus, for instance, experiences linked to “Awareness by Firms” and “Famous People Participation” coincides with similar cases experienced, such as those developed by the Swedish project entitled Entry Hub for the detection of barriers to inclusion and which involved employers, refugees, and local officials, and the German experience called Kitchen in Run, which involves locals and refugees in dinner events for cooking and socialising (Patuzzi et al. 2019). These coincidences should not be viewed as a negative characteristic of the social innovations analysed. Instead, they could be considered positively since they replicate “radical social innovations” created in other higherincome countries (Shockley and Frank 2011). Therefore, these initiatives could be called “social innovation by imitation”. The analysed case of Spain contributes to the literature by increasing the knowledge of social innovation in the field of refugee socio-labour integration. More specifically, the interest of this research comes from being centred on a country with a lower income which has become a destiny for refugees more recently than other traditional host countries. Although some studies have analysed the case of Spain in the development and diffusion of social innovations (De Wit et al. 2019; Rey-Garcia et al. 2018), they have yet to focus on the specific field of socio-labour integration of refugees. This research covers this gap by paying attention to the governance that is taking place to respond to the needs of refugees, what it is also essential to understand how new governance patterns emerge to respond to social challenges. In this sense, this paper shows how local actors organise themselves to respond to these challenges through a 35 process of co-production that emerges from bottom-up initiatives, despite having a lack of experience as a consequence of being a new host country. All these conclusions lead to different practical implications. On the one hand, the role of the State could be reinforced in creating social innovations through their public policies. Although it cooperates and is a crucial element in the development of the asylum system, its role could be more active in participating and proposing new initiatives (Shockley and Frank 2011). Thus, the State could promote the replication of initiatives already created by the private sector in other places, such as the creation of social enterprises or the inclusion on the public TV channel of a space for public awareness. On the other hand, although the social innovations identified are primarily implemented in other traditional destinations for refugees, the relationships of the Spanish institutions analysed herein with other institutions beyond its frontiers could be strengthened to be updated about the initiatives under development in other places. In this context of foreign initiatives for refugee integration, the experiences concerning entrepreneurship are worthy of mention. For instance, an initiative implemented in Sydney encourages refugees to create their businesses (Collins 2017). These types of initiatives could be replicated in new host countries such as Spain. And lastly, this research is not exempt from limitations. Thus, the first limitation is the number of interviews we have developed. Although the number of actors involved in the process is high, it was necessary to select criteria to manage all the actors participating in the National Asylum System, which finally resulted in the leading four organisations that were members of the old Ariadna Network. In addition, the interviews were developed in the same city. Although the authors tried to make the interviewed person answer according to a national perspective, the trend was to locate their answers in their territory. Thus, to have a more faithful approach to social 36 innovation in this field at a national level, it should be interesting in future research to consider a higher number of organisations located beyond the geographical borders here considered. Moreover, due to the dynamism the world is experiencing that makes the circumstances change drastically in a very short time, it may happen that some initiatives started may not be continued in the future because, for instance, sudden government cuts related to a context of economic crisis could affect the activities of the institutions. In this respect, to remain up-to-date regarding social innovations and their detected impact, the study can be repeated in further research to find out how the initiatives have evolved and also to ascertain whether they have been successful towards the socio-labour integration of refugees in Spain, in addition to the detection of new measures that may have emerged. 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