SI PLUS is one of the six projects supported by the European Commission in order to establish national competence centres for social innovation across the EU. It aims to build up national competence centres for social innovation in Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia. The centres are meant to boosts social innovation, notably with a focus on employment and the labour market.
In the period between May 2021 and May 2023 social innovation organisations, research centres, ESF managing authorities and other partners have to design and develop competence centres, which can help their countries to promote social innovation.
The Center for Social Innovations is the result of multi-layered and diverse scientific and practical work on the SI Plus project.
Creating a Center for Social Innovation is generally a long process. For the last year SDA team, who is working on its creation, have held numerous meetings and events with experts, decision-makers, and citizens in order to shape and detail the structure and functions of such a center and the citizens’ needs.
Based on a year-long study, numerous focus groups, seminars and discussion forums, a clear concept for the Center for Social Innovations was created.
Based on the research findings and their validation the functions of the future Competence Centre could be:
- Capacity-building:among a range of stakeholders: ESF+ managing authorities, local and regional authorities, practitioners, support organisations, donors, etc.
- Raising awareness of the social innovation concept and the visibility of their creators.
- Developing tools and methods to achieve and scale-up impact.
- Networking, synergies and resources: