The Coopcity project wants to help make Brussels a smart city – a city that focuses on social innovation and new social and innovative economic models. The project aims to provide Brussels with a social, cooperative and collaborative entrepreneurship centre. Coopcity includes five support programmes and a coworking space for social innovation and social entrepreneurship.
Coopcity: stimulating social innovation in Brussels
- 27 September 2019
Coopcity works towards a meaningful economy and support for the creation of a Brussels ecosystem conducive to social innovation and entrepreneurial development. Whether through training, support, coaching or the provision of resources, through its influence, Coopcity has a lasting impact on the Brussels region by developing companies that meet strategic challenges for the region.
Coopcity contributes to the creation of economic activities and jobs, as well as to the improvement of employability (active inclusion, gender equality, anti-discrimination, etc.) and to the enhancement of potential for the creation of sustainable activities and jobs.
Coopcity offers support programmes and a coworking area.
More than 50 projects have benefited from Coopcity's support in fields as varied as communication, culture, environment/re-employment, personal services, housing, health, food and technology.
Shared resources and quality working conditions
Coopcity wants to contribute to the development of an economic fabric in Brussels, which, through a logic of financial self-sufficiency, is more focused on satisfying those social needs that are poorly, very little, or not at all met. The project is based, as far as possible, on the renewed interest in social/cooperative/collective entrepreneurship and on approaches to sharing between entrepreneurs or key economic development players.
The objective is to provide an integrated offer of guidance, advice, support and training services based on the needs of project leaders and social entrepreneurs. Coopcity also aims to support changes of scale and provide a framework for emblematic social entrepreneurship projects in Brussels. Particular attention is paid to the working conditions of the main contributors and users.
Adapted support programmes
Coopcity ensures its mission of support by developing programmes that meet the needs of projects at all stages of development. Five programmes have been developed.
Seeds offers 18 months of support to entrepreneurs who wish to launch a project to meet a social need in Brussels;Blossom consists of providing support over the course of two years to existing social enterprises that wish to develop their activity and impact in Brussels;Pollinize offers 18 months of support to existing structures wishing to implement their multi-actor projects in the personal services sector;Innovate is a custom programme that allows entrepreneurs to explore all aspects of social innovation to develop projects that meet the needs of the Brussels population (or the social aspirations of Brussels residents);We.Coop is the activity programme run by the Coopcity centre. It is composed of four strands: We.Learn, We.Discover, We.meet and We.are.At the end of 2018, thanks to the centre's activities, 65 companies were able to benefit from the support and assistance of Coopcity, 38 new companies were created, 20 jobs were created, and awareness of the project was raised amongst 2,437 people.
Total investment and European funding
Total investment for the project ‘Coopcity: social, cooperative and collaborative entrepreneurship centre, integrating an incubator and coworking space’ is EUR 4 644 531; the Cohesion Fund contribution is EUR 2 091 940 through the ‘ERDF PO Brussels Capital Region/ EFRO OP Brussel Hoofdstedelijk Gewest’ cooperation programme for the 2014-2020 programming period. The investment falls under the ‘Jobs, Growth and Investment’ priority.