**7. Limitations**

Our work has significant limitations that extend our conclusions to a larger domain of interventions. First of all, our analyses are limited by documented interventions presented with a specific standardised format, which focuses on the accomplishments of interventions. This presentation undoubtedly hinders the failures and weaknesses of interventions, which require further investigation. An in-depth focus on the projects can reveal further information to create a clearer measurement of the social innovation dimensions of interventions. Secondly, these documents do not reveal information about the social impact of these interventions. Some of these documents include a specific section to present quantitative

outcomes; however, it is not a common practice. A standardised toolbox for measuring the social impact of the programmes has not been developed yet, and it depends on the authors of the reports. In the medium term, this measurement can be included in the presentation of the results. The lack of this data prevented us from building a link between the social innovation of any intervention with its performance. Building such a link and proving it empirically would be an important contribution to the debate. To fill this gap, it is possible to select a sample of interventions and focus on this relationship. Finally, as these interventions are not developed from a social innovation perspective, our analyses became ex-post-facto and, sometimes, practically irrelevant, as many of them have already been completed. However, we believe that this article may include this perspective regarding the design and evaluation of the projects in the near future.

Independently of how radical the proposed changes are, social innovation is considered essential as an instrument and process to realise a transition towards more sustainable practices in urban/rural societies. This underlines the importance of better understanding how it works and how the process related to social innovation may be effectively supported. The role of the individual actors in the social innovation ecosystem is immense; therefore, the regions, despite whether they are rural or urban, must address this in their education programme (standard, voluntary, and extracurricular). The EU-wide policies and guarantees would make this new orientation more effective and can also emphasise a special attention to rural frameworks and ecosystems.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization E.E., H.P., V.L.; methodology, E.E., H.P.; resources, H.P., E.E., P.F., B.N., H.P., V.L.; writing—review and editing, P.F., B.N., V.L.; visualization, H.P.; project administration, B.N.; funding acquisition, E.E. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This article is based upon work from COST Action CA18213 Rural NEET Youth Network, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology); https://rnyobservatory.eu/ web/ (accessed on 28 August 2021) and the APC was funded by the COST Action CA18213 Rural NEET Youth Network.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study is available upon request by contacting Emre Erdogan.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

## **References**

