Development of Financial Ecosystems for the Promotion of Social Entrepreneurship in Rural Regions
European rural regions are currently facing several societal challenges, especially aging of population, brain drain and unemployment. Social innovation becomes more important to develop solutions to these problems and the promotion of social entrepreneurship (SE) is an important contribution to facilitate the economic transformation process especially in rural areas. Nevertheless, the traditional business support infrastructures and measures operated by regional or local authorities are not adapted to the special needs of social enterprises. There is a general lack of knowledge and understanding how social entrepreneurship evolves and works and how it can be efficiently promoted.
The main objective of the project is the promotion of social entrepreneurship in rural regions with special transformation challenges to advance economic and social innovation. The rural regions Saalekreis (DE), Hajdu Bihar (HU), Duga Resa (CR) and rural areas in Piedmont Region (IT) work together with the specific objective to improve funding for public support structures for social entrepreneurship and further develop finance and funding instruments for social enterprises. The project wants to facilitate a quadruple helix cooperation process of regional and local stakeholders for social entrepreneurship in a rural environment.
The partners will develop a toolbox for promotion of social entrepreneurship in rural regions, which will be tested in four pilot projects. 8 capacity building seminars with focus on municipalities and finance institutions will be organised to further spread the developed knowledge. Finally, 4 actions plans will be developed in the partner regions to ensure sustainability and mainstreaming of project results. The project will allow a transnational mutual learning process of partners with similar challenges and different experiences. The transfer and adaptation of experiences for promotion of social entrepreneurship in a rural environment is innovative.