Regional Disparities of the Social Innovation Potential in the Visegrad Countries: Causes and Consequences

The international literature is paying significant and increasing attention to the analysis of the regions’ innovation potential, and its active contribution to economic growth and competitiveness. Beside the classical, technical innovation, also the social innovation is getting even more emphasis. It can solve as alternative basically in the case of the peripheral territories. The convergence of peripheries is a stressed priority in the European Union. The territorial disparities are resulting in significant social and political problems also in the case of the Visegrad countries’ regions. The authors in their research represent a possible method for the measurement of regional (NUTS-2) level social innovation potential on the example of the Visegrad countries, and they also analyse the causes and consequences of disparities. The applied complex social innovation index can be calculated as a result of three pillars (economic, social, culture and attitude), and several components. As a result of the created patterns can be concluded that compared to the economic indicators, the disadvantage of the peripheries is not so significant in the case of the social innovation index, because of the complex character of the index. In the second part of the research, the authors analyse and evaluate also the methods, which can be adequate for increasing the social innovation potential.