Social entrepreneurship is a relatively new industry in Latvia, with a little bit more than 170 officially registered social enterprises (limited liability enterprises with a social enterprise status). Around 40% of these enterprises are based outside of capital Riga. Even though the national level support system for social enterprises is in place, regional and local municipalities play an increasingly important role in promoting social entrepreneurship on a regional and local level, creating opportunities for new social enterprises and strengthening existing social enterprises. To look for successful examples of developing social economy ecosystem in other European rural regions, Vidzeme Planning Region together with partners from Cantabria region (Spain), Lombardia region (Italy) and Pomeranian V-Voivodeship (Poland) are implementing Europe’s programme for SMEs (COSME) project Social Ecosystem Leads the Future (SELF).
The aim of the SELF project is to develop a resilient social economy model for the rural environment aimed at transforming regions through the social and solidarity economy. At the end, the project aims to create, consolidate and develop a new and transnational network of regional authorities, experts and entities of social economy sector with similar concerns in order to generate a permanent community in this field as key of a sustainable European social economic system.
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Title
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Social Ecosystem Leads the Future
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Abbreviation
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SELF
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Lead partner
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Regional Ministry of Economy and Finance-Government of Cantabria (Spain)
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Programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises 2014-2020 COSME
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Partners
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- Lombardia Region (Italy)
- Vidzeme Planning Region (Latvia)
- Pomeranian Voivodeship-Regional Center of Social Policy (Poland)
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Objectives
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Overall objective:
To develop a resilient social economy model for the rural environment aimed at transforming regions through the social and solidarity economy.
The specific objectives of the SELF project are:
- Raise the extent and level of strategic inter-regional collaboration in the field of social economy
- Put in value the social economy as a relevant sector in sustainable economic and social development in Europe.
- Sharing of good practices and success stories that could be replicated
- Contribute to the long-term sustainable competitiveness of the European social economy stakeholders
- The project also aims to develop the capacities for Social Entrepreneurship among young people and the unemployed to respond to specific social needs in an innovative way through the dissemination of good practices
- To create opportunities to engage in strategic inter-regional collaboration and develop future collaborative projects between authorities and social economy stakeholders (with focus on disabled people)
- Strengthen the management skills of public and private bodies related to social economy
- Facilitate a new public-private approach and reinforce future collaborations
- Enhancing interaction and improving collaboration between existing social economy networks and stakeholders at regional and local level in the field of priorities of “Social economy missions”
- Boosting inter-regional learning between social economy stakeholders (public and private sector) in the field of priorities of “Social economy missions”
- Contributing to a gradual building of a Social Economy community.
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Activities
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- Detection of unmet needs along with their potential responses through new economic activities
- Mapping the already existing social innovation initiatives in partner countries
- Sharing best practices/success stories experience that can be replicated by the consortium
- Raising awareness and sensitizing citizens to the need to apply more sustainable and viable production models linked to the territory and its current needs
- Ensuring publicity of project results.
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Results
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Creation, consolidation and development of a new and transnational network of regional authorities, experts and entities of social economy sector with similar concerns in order to generate a permanent community in this field as key of a sustainable European social economic system.
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Budget
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Total – 99 988 EUR
Vidzeme Planning Region - 22 683 EUR
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Implementation period
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01.02.2021. – 31.01.2022.
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Contact person
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Lienīte Priedāja-Klepere
Tel. +371 26133028
lienite.priedaja@vidzeme.lv
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The content of this page represents the views of the author only and is his/her sole responsibility; it cannot be considered to reflect the views of the European Commission and/or the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) or any other body of the European Union. The European Commission and the Agency do not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.
