Grant to enable more social enterprises to take on repayable finance for developing and scaling up their business models
Objective: (i) To engage a network of regional and local authorities, and stakeholders with similar social economy priorities; and (ii) to create space for inter-regional learning and collaboration
Programme: EU programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (COSME)
Institutions: European Commission - Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME)
Budget: EUR 1 900 000 for 19 proposals
Financing type: Grant of maximum EUR 100 000 per project
Who is eligible:
- Legal entities forming a consortium:
- Coordinator: regional / local public administration (municipality, city, region, etc.)
- Partners: regional / local public administration (municipality, city, region, etc.)
- At least three different regional / local public administrations from three different EU MSs or countries participating in the COSME programme
- In addition, network or umbrella organisations in the field of social economy or social entrepreneurship can participate as consortium partnerss
Requirements:
- Proposals must contain a “social economy mission”, which identifies one topic relevant to all consortium partners around the development of social economy. Possible topics:
- Building resilient regional and/or local ecosystems;
- Socially responsible public procurement;
- Building Clusters of Social and Ecological Innovation or participation in traditional clusters;
- Support to social economy business development;
- Support to local and regional initiatives in the area of green and digital transition;
- Local or regional measures tackling unemployment;
- Sustainable agriculture and rural development;
- Education and training to develop the social economy ecosystem;
- The development of horizontal policies to support social economy at local or regional level;
- Social economy initiatives to integrate migrants;
- Other
- Proposal must foresee at least three workshops within the timeframe of one year