Social innovation involves the creation and implementation of new ideas, practices and policies designed to address social challenges and enhance the well-being of European citizens. By engaging public authorities, civil society, academia and the private sector, these innovations seek to generate social impact and empower communities to actively participate in driving change.
To fully unlock the potential of social innovation, an enabling policy framework is needed to support socially innovative solutions, thereby contributing to address socio-economic issues, building stronger territorial resilience and better respond to future shocks.
ESF+ support to social innovation
The European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) supports social innovation through several measures. EU Member States are asked to support social innovation with ESF+ funding through specific actions in their own national or regional context.
In addition to Member States’ intervention, the following EU-level actions target social innovation:
ESF Social Innovation+ Initiative
With a budget of €197 million, the ESF Social Innovation+ Initiative includes EU-wide, transnational projects to develop, replicate and scale up innovative solutions.
The European Competence Centre for Social Innovation launches transnational calls for proposals. It also collects, assesses, develops, validates, and disseminates suitable tools and methods for social innovation.
It offers mutual learning, capacity building and networking for ESF+ managing authorities and other relevant stakeholders.
Social Innovation Match
The Social Innovation Match aims to support the visibility of social innovation initiatives, publicise good practices and facilitate partnership-building.
The Social Innovation Match allows stakeholders to showcase their social innovation initiatives and search for initiatives developed and tested in other countries. In addition, it offers a partner search function for organisations involved in transnational calls for proposals.
National Competence Centres for Social Innovation
From May 2021, six projects spent 2 years building National Competence Centres for Social Innovation across nearly all Member States. These centres help managing authorities to programme and implement social innovation actions and support organisations on the ground with capacity-building and networking measures.
EaSI Strand of the ESF+
Social innovation is also supported under the Employment and Social Innovation strand (EaSI) of the ESF+. This includes EU-wide social experimentation calls for proposals to support the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights, as well to respond to emerging needs on the ground.
Guides
The Commission has prepared two complementary guides on social innovation and social experimentation.
- Social experimentation: a practical guide for project promoters. This guide offers a practical methodology to aid practitioners in preparing a social experimentation proposal. It is also useful for other stakeholders, notably those responding to ESF+ national and regional calls on social innovation under shared management.
- Scaling-up social innovation - Seven steps for using ESF+. This toolkit is primarily intended for ESF managing authorities and intermediate bodies. It outlines seven strategic steps to follow in support of scaling-up of social innovations.
