“Social economy missions” aim to accelerate the development and awareness of social economy potential within the European Union, in particular at local and regional level. Often the commitment towards this mission is insufficient with a lack of active collaboration.

The European Commission, through the “COSME programme”, launched a call for proposals tailored to engage a network of regional and local authorities established in the EU and COSME participating countries to constitute a space for inter-regional learning and collaboration.

Sharing of good practices and mutual learning

The call will support consortia in sharing and replicating best practices, creating opportunities for future inter-regional partnerships on priorities related to “social economy missions”.

The expected result is to support the development of the European social economy community by encouraging interaction between different partners, both at public and private level.

Boosting social innovation at inter-regional level is fundamental to shift towards a more sustainable and green economy. The Social Economy has the potential to support the green transition within the new European Green Deal.

The call requires applicants to clearly identify a topic and specify the objectives to be achieved by the mission. Listed below are the main topics. Nevertheless, consortium partners can propose any other topic with relevance to the development of the social economy.

1. Building resilient regional and/or local ecosystems;
2. Socially responsible public procurement;
3. Building Clusters of Social and Ecological Innovation or participation in traditional clusters;
4. Support to social economy business development;
5. Support to local and regional initiatives in the area of green and digital transition;
6. Local or regional measures tackling unemployment;
7. Sustainable agriculture and rural development;
8. Education and training to develop the social economy ecosystem;
9. The development of horizontal policies to support social economy at local or regional level;
10. Social economy initiatives to integrate migrants;
11. Other (identified by the applicants).

Who is eligible ?

• Participants must be legal entities forming a consortium established in EU member states or COSME countries.
• The coordinator must be a regional or local public administration
• The consortium partners must be regional or local public administration
• At least 3 regional or local public administration from 3 different countries
• The participation of the same regional or local public administration in more than one proposal is not permitted

What are the activities ?

1. Kick off meeting with the EASME and the European Commission in Brussel
2. Online or offline session with invited representatives of the consortia, organised by European Commission to release guidance on participatory methods for planning and organising workshops
3. Organize three compulsory workshops in the field of priority of “social economy mission” (read the call for the details)
4. Optionally, other additional learning activities such as workshops, webinars, peer-to-peer learnings, etc. can be organised

All the proposals have to be submitted through the Funding and tenders portal before the 9 of June 2020 at 17.00 (Brussels time). Applications must be sent in one of the official EU languages.

The total budget is estimated at EUR 1 900 000, the maximum grant per project is EUR 100.000 and in total EASME is expecting to fund 19 proposals.

Before submitting the proposal read carefully the call text and the guide for applicants released by the European Commission. If you have additional questions you can address them to [email protected] . All the collected questions receive an answer in the FAQ’s document regularly published and accessible to everyone in the COSME webpage.

Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash