Social Problems – as an Indicator of Directions of Development of Social Innovations in Poland

Abstract

Social innovations understood as planning and implementing new, creative ways of meeting social needs are more and more important because they are related to rationalization of social expenses, and willingness to constant raising quality of life of their inhabitants. Characteristic feature of social innovations is a wide scope, which includes all spheres of activity of the enter-prises and society: sphere of production, exchange and consumption. The main goal of the article is to present the meaning of the concept of social innovations in deliberations concerning new ways of solving social problems, particularly affecting the elderly and disabled people. Innovations aiming at prevention of processes leading to social exclusion of the elderly and disabled people, or raising quality of their life can be effective thanks to, among others, reduction of expenses through proper management of social innovations and their individualization and use of synergy effects. Relations between social innovations and social problems are regarded as important in the article. Definitions concerning social innovations and process of creating and implementing them are pre-sented in the first part of the article. Demographic changes, their territorial diversity and problem of disability in Poland are presented in the next part of the article. The role of social innovations in a process of solving social problems is discussed in the last part of the article.