Social entrepreneurship has been identified as a key feature of the EU social market economy, social enterprises (SEs) contributes to the emergence and expansion of new market-based business models seeking ways to contribute to economic and societal values. SEs also have great potential for developing social innovations to improve quality of life, satisfy new needs, or public sector restructuring. Nonetheless, the concepts of “social economy” and “social innovation” are little known or misunderstood and it seems to be considered rarely as an important factor for business, especially for young people. On the other hand, social start-ups encounter more difficulties in reaching economic sustainability.
The goal of this project is to develop a complete research in the field of youth social entrepreneurship in different countries taking part in this project, so we can define the model of supporting social entrepreneurship of young people, spot weaknesses and strong points and design a training scheme both in the field of training for social entrepreneurs already working and for others who will like to develop their professional careers in this sector, as well as design innovative youth SE services.
The project INN@SE relies on the idea that a successful approach to overcome such challenges, can be represented by the open innovation methodology based on a cross-sectoral collaborative process. Thus, the project partnership is created by organizations from countries with different level of know-how on SE (Poland, Italy, North Macedonia, Jordan), representing sectors with different approaches to the topic (higher education, research, NGO). All partners are highly specialized in activities related to young people empowerment, training, social economy research, and start-ups development and the diverse knowledge, experience and skills that each partner imputes to the project, should be valued and recognized as essential to ensure the success and sustainability of the joint efforts.
Taking context and needs into consideration, partners have identified the following objectives which derive directly from the 3 target needs areas (skills & capacity building, orienteering & networking, awareness-raising):
- To disseminate entrepreneurial mindset and skills among young people at a broader EU level; to provide aspiring young social entrepreneurs with a clear toolkit to start up;
- To facilitate access of young people and youth staff to information regarding the grant, training and mentoring opportunities and tools at local and international level; to promote networking among young SEs;
- To promote an EU culture of SE among society, rehabilitating entrepreneurship through social entrepreneurship, with special attention to the contribution represented “by” and “to” young people; to raise awareness among young people as active citizens regarding social, environmental, and diversity challenges of EU communities, and how SE can face them; to promote the visibility among key stakeholders of social businesses and the importance of social innovation and social impact.
Project duration: 01.04.2020 – 31.07.2022
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See description of the project on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform