Participation and Social Innovation as a Compass towards Integration : The Rationale behind the INTE-great Project

This paper presents the theoretical and operational approach of the AMIF funded project INTE-great “Stakeholder Partnership for the integration of Migrants” that has the aim of build-ing a stronger integration strategy and ecosystem for migrants, in particular asylum seekers, refugees and migrants with subsidiary protection (women, men, families and LGBTIQ+) at urban level through cross-sector stakeholders partnerships, developing an innovative Integration Strategy Framework (ISF) according to which five pilot initiatives will be tested and experi-mented in five partnering countries (IT, ES, EL, CY, IE). The paper is structured as follows. After retracing the main development of the integration concept in different social-sciences, we pro-pose the operational definition of integration adopted in the project. We then concentrate on the role of migrants’ participation in enhancing a more effective integration path, before presenting the way in which we interpret the meaning of social innovation in the five pilot initiatives of the INTE-great project. We conclude highlighting that a multi-stakeholder partnership adopting a real participatory migrants’ approach in the co-design, implementation and evaluation of the pilot initiatives constitutes the added value of social innovation in the field of migrants’ integra-tion services.