On 21 September 2022, the KoM of SocialTech4EU took place. During the upcoming 24 months, the 6 project partners will focus on supporting digital and green business models in relation to social economy enterprises. The project is one of the 14 Industrial Ecosystems – linked to the EU industrial Strategy, namely the Proximity and Social Economy Cluster.

This project was set up to tackle the challenges social economy organisations face in relation to the access to digital and green business models and the twin transition. Often facing difficulties access to finance, lack of skills and talent attraction capacity, low competitiveness on the market compared to traditional SMEs, social economy enterprises face obstacles in their potential to address societal challenges through their human-centered rather than profit focused approach.

In Europe the social economy is made up of approx. 500.000 enterprises employing 2.000.000 of human resources, making the social economy a crucial actor in the labour market integration of disadvantaged groups. Furthermore, it is an important potential actor in the twin transition, particularly in relation to re- and upskilling of vulnerable groups. The SocialTech4EU project aims at strengthening the resilience and innovation capacity, competitiveness, and sustainability, of social economy ecosystems and of start-ups and SMEs of the social economy, with a special focus on technology social ventures.

During the meeting, the project consortium got the opportunity to get to know each other and discuss the next steps in the project. As the project will launch open calls for social economy enterprises aimed at supporting them, practicalities were discussed. Each partner could bring in their own expertise and complement the consortium. This innovative project aims to bridge the gap between green and digital transitions and the social economy, a promising goal. Keep an eye on this webpage and the European Cluster Collaboration Platform for further updates.