Webinar hosted by EBN on the European Commission’s recently released Social Economy Action Plan (SEAP) on 19 May 2022.

Our key speakers was:

• Guy Lejeune, Senior Expert on Inclusive Entrepreneurship from DG Employment, European Commission.
• Karel Vanderpoorten, Policy officer –Proximity, Social Economy, Creative Industries from DG GROW, European Commission,

Background

In its recently launched EU Social Economy Action Plan (SEAP)“Building an economy that works forpeople: an action plan for the socialeconomy“ (2021-2030), the European Commission has signalled an important role of the business support organisations (BSOs) in supporting the social economy organisations and social enterprises, while advising the EU Member States to encourage BSOs to better incorporate these entities in their business development services (p.14).The SEAP proposes 38 concrete measures to be implemented in the coming nine years, in different core areas, including :

• promoting social economy at local, regional, and international levels,
• business support,skills,youth entrepreneurship,
• access to funding and finance,
• social impact measurement,
• social economy contribution to the green and digital transitions,
• socialinnovation.

Webinar Objectives

Besides providing the summary of the key aspects of the SEAP, the Webinar “Social Economy Action Plan : Opportunities for BSOs” focused on how we can increase the impact of the BSOs in the implementation stage of the SEAP, looking at the following :

• how to maximise the potential of the BSOs to translate some of the recommendations in the SEAP into practical initiatives on the local, national and EU level.
• what are the existing and future synergies of the SEAP with other EU programmes/initiatives which will enable BSOs to foster social innovation, local development, and green and digital transition while reaching social impact.

During the session

During the session the speakers talked about the importance of the transition pathway on proximity and social economy referring to the Annual Signle Market Report 2021 presented an analysis of the challenges in 14 industrial ecosystems and the transformative initiatives to achieve the twin green and digital transition and increase resilience. They will also build on the social economy action plan, which proposes a series of actions for the period 2021-2030 to support the development of the social economy.

They also emphasised the different types of business companies present in the European Union, highlighting achievements such as entrepreneurship, social innovation policies, the Single Market Act, the Small Business Act, among others. In 2023 the European Cooperative Statute is expected to be adopted.

They gave relevance to the role of clusters and similar business forms that cooperate in fostering the development of the social economy, through the report that identifies the model of Clusters of Social and Ecologic Innovation (CSEI) and explores their presence across the European Union.

The European Social Economy Regions initiative (ESER) initiative was also discussed during the session. Launched in 2018, has become a powerful social economy community of practitioners across Europe, generating more than 100 new regional and local partnerships on social economy. Its key objectives are to raise awareness of social economies at the regional and local level and to build regional networks of social economy stakeholders.

The different forms of funding available to EU and non-EU citizens were also highlighted. Referring to microfinance, social enterprise finance and other relevant EU funding programs during 2021 – 2027 such as The European Social Fund Plus, Horizon Europe Projects, Enterprise Europe Network , Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs ans more.

Also important is the EU Funding Toolkit, an interactive EU funding guide, that provides detailed information on the relevant financial and non-financial support programmes made available to social enterprise support organisations by various public institutions and private organisations. It also showcases all novelties presented under the new EU Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021-2027, to make sure social enterprises and their support organisations are well aware of new EU Funding programmes and adaptations of already existing programmes

About Better Incubation

The seminar is organised as a part of the Better Incubation programme (2021 –2023) funded by the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation, and is led by three network organisations: The European Business and Innovation Centre Network, Impact Hub and the European Venture Philanthropy Association.

The aim of Better Incubation is to strengthen the role of the business support organisations as catalysts of the entrepreneurial support ecosystem, while experimenting with the inclusive incubation practices to foster inclusive and social entrepreneurship across Europe. Read more here.

You can watch the session again here

Next Webinar

The next Better Incubation webinar related to Social economy funding instruments will take place towards the end of the year (December 2022). We will inform you about the date and details soon.

This year we will welcome again over 200 participants from innovation community to debate, learn and explore challenges and opportunities demanded by transition of our societies towards 2030.

The Panel  ‘Innovation community growth – Unlikely innovators & untapped potential’ will address importance of diversity of perspectives needed to be in place to move towards a more inclusive and impact driven approach to innovative entrepreneurship. Powered by the Better Incubation project, the session will bring together speakers from different sectors to discuss how the ecosystemic change can be fostered to promote entrepreneurship and self-employment as means to create jobs and develop skills of vulnerable groups of the society.

Date: 25 May 2022, 10h05 – 10h45

Moderator: Dorijan MARSIC, Director – EU|BIC Sezana, Slovenia

Panellists:

• Steven Serneels, Chairman of the Board – European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA),
• Carole Thurston – Business Consultant, South East BIC, Ireland ,
• Maud Garnier, Entrepreneur and Founder of the enterprise Ordestie , France

Main questions to be discussed :

• Why should the mainstream intermediaries engage in the process of supporting social and inclusive incubation?
• What are the synergies and challenges of different stakeholders in the process of development and strengthening of the impact driven innovative entrepreneurship and how they can be better engage in this process?
• What are the tested best-practices how to encourage the BSOs to take on the leadership role in the transformation of the impact driven entrepreneurial ecosystem leading to the sustainable transition?
• How to how adapt and modify business acceleration support services to help social and underrepresented entrepreneurs transform ideas into viable businesses and grow them by accessing new funding and market opportunities?

Check our Congress website to learn more about the event : https://www.ebncongress.eu/ 

 

 

Call for Design and Facilitation services : Better Incubation Bootcamp #2

 Impact Hub on behalf of the Better Incubation project consortium is looking for a contractor to design and deliver the 2^nd Better Incubation Community of Practice  (CoP) Bootcamp.

The goal of the bootcamp is to:

• Reconnect the CoP participants
• Present conclusions from each CoP
• Developing a set of policy recommendations

Location : home-based (preparation), plus 2 days in Prague, Czech Republic (delivery)

The duration of the consultancy : May-July 2022.

Deadline : 17th May 2022

Please consult ToR Call for facilitators Bootcamp #2 for details

For further information please contact Lucia Radu : lucia.radu@impacthub.net

In the latest Newsletter you will find the following project highlights :

• Webinar on Social Economy Action Plan for BSOs
• Call for the members of EBN and IHUB networks to  join our policy efforts
• Stories of the inclusive entrepreneurship support programmes
• Overview of the project events for 2022.

Better Incubation Newsletter #5

Enjoy your read!

New Programme on Senior Entrepreneurs “5.0 : Entrepreneurship Capacity Building” Programme

Launched on 27 April, by IPN, Portugal

 

The member of the Better Incubation CoP for seniors : Instituto Pedro Nunes (IPN)  is a business incubator based in Coimbra Portugal, having a wealth of experience with supporting the senior entrepreneurs.

In their previous project Empreendedorismo 5.0: supporting seniors entrepreneurship in Portugal,IPN has provided support to the seniors’ entrepreneurial endeavors through an eight-week entrepreneurship capacity-building training and mentoring programme delivered in a mixed format.

On 27 April, IPN in partnership with  Fundação Bissaya Barreto (FBB Foundation) launched a new initiative 5.0 Cinco Ponto Zero – Programa de Capacitação para o Empreendedorismo (Five point zero – entrepreneurship capacity building programme) which will benefit from the methodology of the Empreendedorismo 5.0 project.

The new project targets seniors (50 years plus) and intends to expose up to 50 participants who have a business idea and need to be skilled on how to start a business, to the capacity building programme. The programme consists of an online training course combined with specialized online mentoring and 2 presence sessions.

The data from the 5.0 Cinco Ponto Zero will be also included into the results of the inclusive pilots of the Better Incubation project,  thus testing, validating and enriching the lessons learned and measurement and monitoring framework of the Better Incubation project.