Socioeconomic Innovation in the Context of Globalization

The end of the Cold War and the profound technological transformations that spread throughout the world in the 1990s opened a new historical phase: the age of globalization. It is characterized by the fast sociocultural and economic integration as well as by the increased mobility of people, ideas, commodities, services, and capital on a local and global scale. All these transformations are clustered in the concept of globalization. The age of globalization is marked by a new understanding of the economy, society, and the environment, as well as emerging emergencies connected to, among many issues, cultural radicalization, financial crisis, war, biocultural depletion, migration management, rural abandonment, unregulated urbanization, climate change, demographic crises, and pandemics. These new challenges have triggered forms of socioeconomic innovation that involve the most diverse sectors and actors and foster new policies and new forms of politics at local and global, as well as urban and rural levels. Within the framework of the UN 2030 Agenda, this Special Issue invites contributions that: Identify models of socioeconomic innovation that marks the era of globalization; Analyze specific phenomena of socioeconomic innovation and their contribution to achieving the SDGs; Analyze socioeconomic innovation resulting from multilateral cooperation addressing shared challenges, by focusing on all tiers of government (national, regional, and/or local), as well the private and/or not-for-profit sectors; Examine cultural, social, political, and economic factors that can foster socioeconomic innovation.