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Better Incubation Communities of Practise at the starting blocks

Posted on May 19, 2021May 19, 2021 by admin

Between May 18th and May 21st, the Better Incubation Communities of Practise (CoPs) meet online for their first monthly call.

Migrants and Refugees, People with Disability, Seniors, Women, Youth: these are the five thematic working groups which serve as a social space in which participants can discover and further a learning partnership related to a common domain. The programme proposes a model to link together theoretical concepts with practices and guidelines for effective action. In this sense the CoPs foreseen in Better Incubation will serve as a powerful virtual space where participants will debate, exchange, investigate, plan, prototype and evaluate the activities in the field of inclusive entrepreneurship.

The CoPs are formed by at least 7 individuals: 4 representing members of IHUB and EBN, 1 representing Caritas Europa, and 2 external participants, either entrepreneurs from the under-represented group the CoP is working on, or experts on the subject more broadly. Coordinators from IHUB or EBN facilitate the work of the 7 representatives on each CoP, who come together online every month between May 2021 and May 2022, in 1,5 hours long sessions.

Following a selection process that brought Better Incubation partners to assess 100+ applications from 30+ EaSI countries, 36 CoPs participants from 19 EaSI Countries were selected.

Impact Hubs: Amsterdam (Netherlands), Athens (Greece), Budapest (Hungary), Istanbul (Turkey), Kings Cross – London (UK), Lisbon (Portugal), Madrid (Spain), Milan (Italy), Munich (Germany), Reggio Emilia (Italy).
EBN members: Bwcon GmbH (Germany), Accent Inkubator (Austria), Laval Mayenne Technopole (France), BIC Euronova (Spain), Coventry University Social Enterprise (UK), Ruse Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Bulgaria), IPNincubadora (Portugal), CEEI Aragon (Spain), Entreprendre.wapi (Belgium), Fundecyt (Spain).
Caritas: Slovakia, Serbia, Austria, Denmark, Greek-Catholic Metropolitan Caritas Association Romania
Experts/Entrepreneurs: Hope 4 The Community (UK), Intellexi (Hungary), Project Phoenix (Cyprus), UNIRE (Italy), Project Ahead (Italy), INMI (Spain), Care Hub (Romania), BlindLook (Turkey), Oilright (Romania), Movingmood (Spain).

Moreover, EVPA offered its members the possibility to join the CoPs as observers and get involved in specific discussions around access to finance and impact assessment. So far the following organisations are involved in the Better Incubation Communities of Practises: The Human Safety Net, Cartier Women’s Initiative, Fundacion ONCE.

CoPs participants already met on April 16th for the Better Incubation Bootcamp #1: a full day online event designed by the project partners to let CoPs participants getting to know each other, familiarising with the programme and starting drawing the “journey” the 5 CoPs will undertake between May 2021 and June 2022. The event was a mix of plenary and breakout sessions aimed at offering participants with different opportunities to learn from and exchange with peers, also allowing for interactions between individuals belonging to different CoPs.

“The CoPs should not be seen as structures that work in silos focusing on one specific vulnerable target group, but rather as bodies activating a mutual exchange within the same community and among the other communities. The transversal CoPs will analyse the conditions that prevent specific groups from embarking on entrepreneurial careers through a series of cross-cutting lenses. Most importantly, this approach will generate several policy insights, which will become one of the key outputs of the CoPs.”

Partnerships for maximising social impact is the topic of the last appointment of the Digital Road to Mannheim event series

Posted on March 25, 2021May 20, 2021 by admin

The European Social Economy Summit: Digital Road to Mannheim will be hosted on April 29 with the theme Partnerships for maximizing social impact.

EBN’s Chiara Davalli will be representing EBN and the Better Incubation project in the panel Insight: Innovation Ecosystems for Social Change – towards a more inclusive and impact driven approach to innovative entrepreneurship at 12.00 CET

Description

There is an undeniable link between strong economies, prosperity, social fairness and sustainable development. In the sustainable transition, the entrepreneurial innovators providing new solutions to tackle the global challenges we experience in our local, regional and national environments are the key enablers. Supporting those who support this new innovative kind of entrepreneurs should be part of the equation. As vehicles for sustainable growth, social and inclusive entrepreneurs are the cornerstones of a rapidly growing social economy sector.

Social entrepreneurship, as a movement and as a term, is moving rapidly into the mainstream. Also, inclusive entrepreneurship, specifically targeting under-represented groups in society can help tackle the growing inequalities Europe is experiencing. Actively including migrants, women and youth has the power to stimulate economic activity through job creation and by empowering individuals. It is about fairness and equity, the realisation of individual aspirations, economic empowerment and growth. It is both a moral and economic imperative.

The next era of entrepreneurship is about raising the bar, levelling the playing field, expanding participation and scaling the networks of social, financial and knowledge capital that provide the foundation for successful and sustainable start-ups and scalable businesses. Business support organisations (BSO), in all their varieties, could expand their scope and increase their role by providing capacity-building and support services to innovative SMEs taking up the call to deliver in the sustainable transition.

Chiara Davalli, Senior Project Leader, European Business and Innovation Centre Network (EBN)
Ann Branch, Head of Unit, European Commission – DG Employment(tbc)
Kristian Mancinone, Social Inclusion Expert – ART-ER
Rocío Nogales Muriel, Executive Director – EMES

Better Incubation: a network of networks linking incubation actors for inclusive and social entrepreneurship

Posted on February 2, 2021May 20, 2021 by admin

EBN, Impact Hub and EVPA collaborate to formalise knowledge exchange under the Better Incubation programme, powered by the EU-funded Linking Incubation Actors for Inclusive and social Entrepreneurship Project.

During the event launch on 27 January 2021, Ann Branch (Head of Unit, EC, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion) highlighted the perfect timing for such a pilot project stimulating mainstream BSOs to broaden their horizons to social and inclusive entrepreneurship: ‘The timing has never been better; it feels like we are beyond a ‘tipping point’ in the sustainability debate. We hope LIAISE can contribute to this bigger picture by bringing these two groups of entrepreneurs onto the radar of mainstream business incubators and mobilising the collective power of European networks’.

On EBN’s side (coordinating the action), CEO Laura Lecci declared to be proud of leading this network of networks and to connect ‘unusual partners’ at the regional and European level, making the most of the different perspectives, skills and expertise towards a more inclusive and sustainable transition: ‘Together with our partners EVPA and IHUB, and with the support of Caritas Europe, Cooperatives Europe, EMES and ENSIE, we will work to provoke an ecosystemic change in Europe’.

There is an undeniable link between strong economies, prosperity, social fairness and sustainable development. Supporting those who support Entrepreneurial innovators providing new solutions to tackle the global challenges should be part of the equation as both a moral and economic imperative.

Already at proposal stage, LIAISE already received more than 60 letters of Supports from European innovation and inclusion players willing to be part of this eco-systemic change.

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