Introduction

This chapter is about the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services in Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It considers the extent to which these integrated ECEC services are beneficial to children, families and society at large, and assesses them as possible best practice with regard to the partnership between public, private for-profit and nonprofit actors. The rationale for the selection of these services (focusing specifically on children aged three and under and their families) is the relevance of the policy area for the theme of Social Investment. The chapter adopts the theoretical framework of social innovation from Westley and Antadze (2010) and applies Hochgerner's (2011) four-dimensional scheme of social innovation – resources, authority flows, routines and beliefs – as elaborated by Bassi (2011).

Analysis of the data collected shows that no one model fits all. Rather, the key success factors for increasing the availability and the affordability of ECEC provision seem to reside in the flexible combination of different funding sources coming from the public sector as well as from the not-for-profit sector and private enterprises. This happens within a comprehensive framework of public policies that responsively addresses the needs identified within each community while striving for universalism. In this sense, the case studies provide exemplary instances of how diversified ECEC provision serving the varied needs of children and families within local communities could be realised, with a special focus on accessibility and economic sustainability. Besides addressing the issues of sustainability and accessibility, the case studies shed light on how the pedagogical quality of ECEC provision and its ongoing improvement could be nurtured through the co-creation and sharing of knowledge, expertise and experiences generated by innovative forms of public governance (local and regional networks, partnerships with parents, coalitions for policy advocacy, inter-agency collaboration).

Social innovation in ECEC services in Emilia-Romagna

This research studied ECEC services in the region of Emilia- Romagna, adopting a realist evaluation approach. In order to verify the potentialities of these services in terms of social innovation – within a Social Investment policy framework – a multiple case-study research approach was adopted. This chapter is therefore based on a case-study design involving in-depth research with three out of the 1,206 services active in the region.