Social Economy

The European Social Economy Summit in Mannheim has been postponed to 26-27 May 2021 due to COVID-19 crisis.

The Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) is adapting its organisational structure to help Europe’s industrial ecosystems recover more effectively from the COVID-crisis and to achieve the EU's digital and green goals.

The EU Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC) 2nd City Lab will take place online from 16 February to 19 February 2021.

The Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC) is a European Commission initiative bringing together 130 cities to achieve intelligent, socially responsible, and sustainable growth through advanced technologies.

This study aims to benchmark diffuse initiatives and policies at EU level as well as national level to promote successful approaches using digital technologies in social economy and social enterprises.

ICC supports cities to leverage advanced technologies and relaunch their economies towards a green, smart and socially-responsible recovery. Following an open call for expression of interest, 90 applications, representing 126 EU cities, have now been selected to participate in ICC.

This call for proposals will support the sharing of good practices and mutual learning on different aspects of social economy and joint social economy priorities at an inter-regional level.

Today the European Commission launched the Intelligent Cities Challenge as the successor to the Digital Cities Challenge.

Following a successful rollout of the European social economy regions initiative in 2018 and 2019, the European Commission Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs is launching a third edition of the European social economy regions (ESER). The ESER make regional and local social economies visible by supporting regional authorities in organising awareness-raising events where stakeholders can also build active networks.

On 24 October, 3 winning projects from the 2019 'challenging plastic waste' competition each received €50,000 for demonstrated potential to reduce plastic waste and improve re-use and recycling at a systemic level.

This study aims to analyse business cooperation between social economy enterprises and traditional enterprises. It also provides validated recommendations to support this kind of cooperation.

The 2019 edition of the European social economy regions initiative (ESER) has attracted more than 50 regions and cities from 16 EU countries and COSME third countries.

The European Commission launched the European social economy regions pilot (ESER) in February 2018 to raise awareness and build networks of social economy stakeholders at regional and local level. The initiative has attracted more than 80 regions and cities who have participated in ESER 2018 and 2019 editions. 2 ESER 2018 concluding events in Bilbao and Brussels gave the European Commission a clear mandate to continue with the awareness-raising campaign and streamline its support in the field of social economy towards targeted inter-regional collaboration.

This call aims to improve the development of cooperatives and promote their image among young people. It seeks to embed cooperative entrepreneurial education in secondary and higher education as well as outside the educational environment. The Commission wants to support project that are innovative, transnational and implemented with a clear intention of replication. Projects should make results public and available for any actor interested in the cooperative business model and entrepreneurial training.

Since 2013, the European Social Innovation Competition has taken on some of the most pressing challenges facing society. In 2019 we’re set to do it all over again, with a brand new Competition theme that will be announced at the Launch event in Slovenia.

This year’s winners were announced last night at an awards ceremony at the Albert Hall in Brussels. The competition, initiated by the European Commission, awards outstanding projects that develop and showcase social innovations and entrepreneurial ideas across Europe.