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Social Enterprise
Spotlighting Shared Outcomes for Social Impact Programs That Work
A greater focus on co-created, measurable outcomes can help build trust between public, private, and social sector partners, and thus improve the effectiveness of outcomes-based contracting and the social programs they create.
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Social Enterprise
Research to Build Resilient Social Economy Ecosystems in Europe
Under the broad umbrella of “the social economy,” research has a major role to play in helping us better understand the strengths and weaknesses of multiple forms of social entrepreneurship.
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Social Enterprise
Social-Tech Entrepreneurs: Building Blocks of a New Social Economy
How a new genre of social entrepreneur can wield emerging technologies to create integrated and inclusive social and industrial policies.
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Government
How European Governments Can Help Spur Innovations for the Public Good
Sensible innovation policy design, targeted at innovations for the public good, can be a crucial tool in helping our societies recover and rebuild.
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Social Enterprise
For Social Business to Become the Norm, We Need to Build a Social Business Infrastructure
For social businesses to survive and thrive, we must change the broader business ecosystem's legal structures, sustainability metrics, accountability systems, and funding opportunities.
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Social Enterprise
Measuring Social Impact Can Help Foster a Stronger European Social Economy
Social enterprises and nonprofit organizations need to change the way they measure the impact of their work and become learning organizations, able to influence public policy.
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Social Enterprise
How Public Procurement Can Spur the Social Economy
European governments purchase more than €2 trillion of goods and services annually, and more of that spending is being done in a socially responsible manner.
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Technology
The Social Economy and the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Why the social economy needs to step up and shape technological development to address social needs, and five strategies to get there.
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SERIES INTRODUCTION
Social Enterprise
Reconceptualizing the Social Economy
The social economy is increasingly seen as a motor for social change, but how can this shift in perspectives be framed to better understand and harness its potential?
European Perspectives on the Emerging Social Economy
One of the important topics of conversation among policy makers, international institutions, and civil society action networks around the globe is how can we create a “social economy” that better meets the needs of all people and our planet. And nowhere is this conversation more vibrant than in Europe.
One of the reasons for the growing interest in this topic is because our understanding of the role that the social economy can play is changing rapidly. Initially conceptualized as something that would simply ameliorate what went wrong in the market or in the realm of the state. Increasingly, the social economy is seen in much broader terms, by some even as a possible replacement for many of the roles that the market and the state play. One can see that in the new actors, fields, and practices emerging such as social tech, impact investing, and collaborative and open social innovation.
The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, in collaboration with the Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, the universities of Heidelberg and Mannheim, and the Social Entrepreneurship Baden-Württemberg, joined together in late 2020 to convene the “Social Economy Science Conference.” The purpose of the convening was to widen our understanding of what the social economy is, and what it can become. (The conference will convene again this year on May 26 and 27.)
The 2020 conference raised as many questions as it answered. What are the implications of the digital transformation for organizations primarily working for the public good? Which transformations are needed to make the economy more inclusive and diverse, or as some policy agendas put it, to “make the economy work for the people”? What can social economy organizations contribute to the complex set of goals for sustainable development?
In this in-depth series we provide insights from leading academics and scholar practitioners who took part in the 2020 convening, and since then have been researching, thinking, and writing about these topics. In the articles that are a part of this In-Depth Series they will look at not only what has been learned and accomplished so far, but also project a future vision of the transformations that the social economy could bring about.