The Social SEEDS partnership is happy to announce that the project may continue its policy-support activities until the 30th of September 2022
The Social SEEDS partnership applied for the extension of project activities for two additional semesters on the 24th of June, 2021. According to the decision of the Interreg Europe Program Monitoring Committee on the 13th of August, 2021, the request for extension had been approved. Thus, the partners may start implementing their activities to develop the policy environment of social entrepreneurship in Europe. Five partners, namely IFKA Public Benefit Non-profit Ltd. (IFKA), Business Support Centre Kranj Ltd. (BSC), Rzeszów Regional Development Agency (RARR), Regional Development Agency of South Bohemia inc. (RERA) and Steinbeis Europe Centre (SEZ) will participate in the project extension that lasts until the 30th of September 2022.
During the extension of the project, the partners will aim to influence five local and national-level policy instruments to support the creation of a more enabling policy environment for social enterprise development in the 2021-2027 programming period.
In accordance with the overall objective of the project extension, partners will implement mapping activities to understand the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the social enterprise ecosystems and policies in the partner countries and regions (Mapping 1), as well as to identify new social enterprise development policies and programs in the partner territories (Mapping 2). The results of the mapping activities will be published in joint mapping reports and will be shared with the social enterprise policy community as well as with the wider audience in the form of two international workshops.
The results of the mapping activities will be used by the partners to support the improvement of policy instruments for social enterprises on transnational, national or regional levels. Two transnational Policy Learning Dialogues will be organized to facilitate the exchange of experiences about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the successful policy reactions and crisis mitigation measures for social enterprises. In addition, Local Policy Focus Group meetings will be organized in each partner country in order to facilitate the drafting of the possible improvements of the targeted policy instruments.
The partnership expects from the extended project activities that they will effectively contribute to improving the governance of the targeted policy instruments and the crisis resilience of the European social enterprise sector consequently. A significant contribution to the unfolding of social enterprises' potential role in the economic and societal recovery of the Union is also expected.
