Hosting Refugees in Mountain Areas as a new Form of Social Innovation

“Social innovation“ has become a buzzword and sometimes it seems that it is the successor of the famous “best practices”. In fact it is sometimes hard to distinghuish what is really a social innovation.The presentation argues that hosting migrants in mountain areas is a real social innovation as it it is a statement against the current tendencies of isolation and xenophobia in Europe and may help in the long run to stabilize fragile municipalities and regions in its peripheral regions. In this sense, it could counteract increasing territorial cleavages between mountains and plains, and between rural and metropolitan areas. The paper presents three examples from the Italian Alps. Experiences from the other Alpine countries will be added in the oral presentation. The paper concludes that hosting migrants may be favourable for regions and migrants. The new situation may create a laboratory situation to develop new forms of cooperation in sparsely populated areas