The SEED-SOCIAL INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM DEVELOPMENT project is supported by the EU Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI).
THE OBJECTIVE
The specific objective of SEED is to stimulate and support the establishment of 4 Social Innovation Competence Centers in Italy, Greece, Romania and Slovenia, where researchers, practitioners, policy-makers and civil servants will work together to create public and open infrastructures capable to assist national ESF managing authorities to better employ the ESF+ funds for the mainstream of Social Innovation as Public Sector Innovation approach to societal challenges.
To achieve these objectives SEED, by taking into the account the priority needs of ESF managing authorities, will engage, build and connect social innovation actors from: ITALY, GREECE, SLOVENIA and ROMANIA with diversified ecosystems to design and implement SI competence centers based on 4 priorities/challenges for the whole consortium and for each country respectively. These are:
ITALY
Support ESF authority to address SI as a driver for Public Sector Innovation
SLOVENIA
Support ESF authority to promote the culture of Digital social innovation
GREECE
Support ESF authority to recognise, re-connect and institutionalise SI
ROMANIA
Support ESF authority to exploit SI for local communities development
The methodology
To guarantee the balance between the ESF national priorities and the collaborative approach between the consortium partners, SEED foresees to exploit a common methodology, with an approach based on local contexts and national priorities using an iterative process of understanding local needs and challenges.
The project started on May 2021 and will end on May 2023.
Project pilots development
The project will experiment the development of 3 pilots:
ITALIAN PILOT
Design Policy Lab for ESF national authorities to co-design a SI policy to be implemented in the next ESF Operational Programs
GREEK PILOT
Scale and adapt to 10 Greek cities 3 local projects of SI recognition and mapping
SLOVENIAN PILOT
Scale the Alpine Space Social innovation national project into a social innovation lab to support SI digital solutions in Slovenia and abroad