The European Commission's Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs is responding to this challenge. We're launching a 'European social economy regions 2018' pilot. The aim is to build effective networks between stakeholders and raise awareness about the social economy at regional and local level. To promote the added value and benefits of social economy on the ground, the pilot will bring together regional and local stakeholders, social economy enterprises, social innovators and policy-makers.

30 regions from all over the Europe and its overseas territories applied and are taking part in the pilot. In 2018, we will discuss a broad variety of social economy-related topics at regional level. These include:

• capacity building
• links between traditional and social economy enterprises
• cooperative entrepreneurship for young people
• social innovation
• social impact etc

The outcomes of the regional debates, the way forward and the best practices will be addressed and shared during the 'Global social economy forum' in Bilbao (October 2018) and the 'European week of regions and cities' (October 2018).

List of participating EU regional entities (in the alphabetical order):

1. Aruba (NL)

2. Budapest (HU)

3. Dublin (IE)

4. Eastern Midlands Waste Region (IE)

5. Emilia Romagna (IT)

6. Florence (IT)

7. Gabrovo (BG)

8. German community in Belgium (BE)

9. Harghita (RO)

10. Hasselt (BE)

11. Karditsa (GR)

12. Kielce (PL)

13. Krakow (PL)

14. Lapland (FI)

15. Lille (FR)

16. Lovech (BG)

17. Maribor (SI)

18. Mayotte (FR)

19. Milan (IT)

20. Murcia (ES)

21. Navarra (ES)

22. Nuremberg (DE)

23. Occitanie (FR)

24. Sofia (BG)

25. Speyer (DE)

26. Strasbourg (FR)

27. Wallonie (BE)

28. Wielkopolska (PL)

29. Zielona Gorza (PL)

30. Zutphen (NL)