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Advancing the European Social Economy: Clusters, Technologies, and Opportunities

Explore the importance of the social economy in Europe, its objectives, and what makes a social enterprise. Discover the recent milestones, implementation of actions, access to funding, access to markets, and improving framework conditions.

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Advancing the European Social Economy: Clusters, Technologies, and Opportunities

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  1. European Social Economy Dublin, 27 September 2018 Karel Vanderpoorten Advanced technologies, Clusters & Social Economy Unit European Commission (DG GROW)

  2. What is Social Economy ? • ‘Social economy’ is an important part of the European socio-economic model. It includes a large variety of stakeholders such as cooperatives, foundations, social start-ups,social enterprises etc.(independently of their legal form); • They operate a very broad number of activities, provide a wide range of products and services across the European single market and generate millions of jobs.

  3. What is Social Economy ? Main objectives:to serve the members and not to obtain a return on investment as the traditional mainstream capital companies do. The members act in accordance with the principle of solidarity and mutuality, and manage their enterprise on the basis of 'one man one vote' principle.

  4. What makes a social enterprise? • Combination of societal goals with an entrepreneurial spirit !!! • Main objective of a social enterprise is to have a social impact rather than make a profit for their owners or shareholders. It operates by providing goods and services for the market in an entrepreneurial and innovative fashion and uses its profits primarily to achieve social objectives. It is managed in an open and responsible manner and, in particular, involves employees, consumers and stakeholders affected by its commercial activities.

  5. Social Economy – European perspectiverecent milestones Communication on a Social Business Initiative (2011); Council Conclusions on the Social Economy (2015) together with: EP resolutions, EESC opinions, CoR opinions; GECES report and recommendations (October 2016); "Start up and Scale-up" Initiative (October 2016);

  6. Social Economy and Social Enterprises going forward

  7. Presentation of the actions • Implementation of actions scheduled for 2017-2018. • Five pillars to be developed: • 1. Access to funding; • 2. Access to markets; • 3. Improving framework conditions; • 4. Social innovation, technologies and new business models; • 5. International dimension.

  8. 1. Access to funding Some examples *EaSI - Microfinance and Social Entrepreneurship guarantee schemes to increase access to microfinance for vulnerable groups and social enterprises who want to set up or develop their business via EIF (European Investment Fund); *EaSI support for Social Enterprise Financing Markets – capacity building, operating grants for EU level networks, technical assistance for finance providers etc.

  9. Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) program

  10. EaSI in Ireland? • Microfinance Ireland benefits from a guarantee since 2015 issued under the EU Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI). • Microfinance Ireland provides loans from €2,000 to €25,000 to both start ups and existing businesses that have less than 10 employees and annual turnover of less than €2m. • Financial support in circumstances where they may be having difficulty in accessing credit from other commercial lending providers. • Since Januari 2018: An additional EUR 30 million commitment from the EU for micro-enterprises in Ireland over the next 5 years •  2,100 micro-entrepreneurs 

  11. What is in the pipeline? Ongoing negotiations on Social investment and Skills window under the InvestEU Fund for the MFF 2021-2027 (4 bn EUR) *Objective: to increase the access to and the availability of microfinance and finance to social enterprises and social economy and support financing related to social investment and skills; *The InvestEU Advisory Hub will integrate the different advisory services currently available into a one-stop-shop for project development assistance. It will provide technical support and assistance to help with the preparation, development, structuring and implementation of projects.

  12. 2. Access to markets *Social procurement: Awareness raising events for contracting authorities in Member States in order to make them aware of the different opportunities at stake and to promote the use of social clauses in their purchasing procedures. Targeted workshops will be roll-out in 15 EU MS in spring/summer 2019; *Update of the 2011 Guide on best practices on strategic public procurement and social clauses. The updated Guide and collection of good practices should be published by the end of 2019.

  13. Social procurement – pilot projects 2019 Aim: inform authorities and industry in 15 EU countries about social considerations in purchasing procedures by • raising awareness  • training contracting authorities  •  training suppliers to the public sector They will be rolled out in the course of 2019 in the following EU countries: Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden. For more information, contact: Estelle.Bacconnier@ec.europa.eu or Anna.Lupi@ec.europa.eu.

  14. 3. Improving framework conditions • *Development of an online policy assessment tool for inclusive and social entrepreneurship policies for local and regional authorities to help them analyse the state of play and to identify further development opportunities concerning their social enterprise ecosystems. The online tool will be launched in Brussels during EWRC (8-11 October); • *Development of social economy clusters: how to better involve social clusters in the instruments set up by the Commission for clusters policy. Best practices will be shown at the Conference on cooperation between traditional and social economy enterprises to be held in Brussels on 3-4 July 2018 and at the Clusters Conference foreseen in 2019.

  15. 4. Social innovation, technologies and new business modelsSocial Challenges Innovation Platform Social innovation marketplace where Public Authorities, Private Companies or Third Sector Organizations can post and give visibility to social and environmental challenges they want to solve. At the same time, social innovators and entrepreneurs from across Europe are invited to propose innovative solutions. Socialchallenges.eu in a nutshell: 1 go-to-platform; 27+ challenges supported and sponsored by a EU grant mechanism scheme; 81 selected solution providers (max 3 per challenge); 2.430.000€ total grant (30000€ per selected solution provider). More information: www.socialchallenges.eu

  16. European Social Innovation Competition • The European Social Innovation Competition is a challenge prize run by the European Commission across all Horizon 2020 associated countries; • The Competition calls all Europeans to come up with solutions to the problems affecting our society; • This year's edition "Re:Think Local" is dedicated to ideas/initiatives empowering young people in a changing economy with focus on local communities; • 3 final winners will receive a prize of €50,000 each during the award ceremony (8 November 2018). • More information: ec.europa.eu/growth/industry/innovation/policy/social/ • competition_en

  17. 5. International collaboration

  18. European Social Economy Regions Pilot *32 pioneering regions on board in 2018; *Focused on social economy awareness raising and building networks of regional social economy stakeholders; *2 concluding events in October: GSEF Bilbao (1-3 October) and EWRC Brussels (8-11 October); *future perspective: to develop capacities for a targeted inter-regional collaboration between social economy partners.

  19. Thank you! Follow us on Twitter! @SocEntEU #EU4SocEnt #GECES And join our LinkedIn Community page: "EU for Social Economy & Social Enterprises" Website: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/social-economy

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