EMES International Research Network
EMES
EMES is a research network of established university research centres and individual researchers whose goal has been so far to gradually build up an international corpus of theoretical and empirical knowledge, pluralistic in disciplines and methodologies, around our “SE” concepts: social enterprise, social entrepreneurship, social economy, solidarity economy and social innovation.
ID: 788210432236-83
Lobbying Activity
Response to Social Economy Action Plan
25 Apr 2021
The European Commission (EC) has announced a European Action Plan for the Social Economy with a proposed duration of five years (2021-2026) that will be launched at the end of 2021. The current position paper by EMES proposes a brief reflection on the perceived role that research has had in contributing not only to the theoretical advancement, systemization and modelization of the promising research areas that the broad field of the social and solidarity economy (SSE) encompasses but also to its consolidation at the practice and policy levels across Europe and around the world. Moreover, it puts forward a number of key areas to be taken into account in the finalization stages of the European Action Plan for the Social Economy. We have completed a collective effort within EMES to gather some of the crucial elements that we recommend the EC to incorporate in the European Action Plan. The result includes eleven suggestions building on the accumulated experience based on broad and deep comparative research and policy-advice activity carried out for over two decades, generated from EMES’ own publications and initiatives as well as its members’ input. Firstly, we focus on general issues related to policy and practice to strengthen the SE ecosystem. Secondly, we put forward several recommendations related to research and training as concrete fields of expertise and experience of EMES and its members.
The European Action Plan for the Social Economy has been in preparation for several years and is to be the second major EC-led policy initiative on the SSE following the Social Business Initiative (SBI, 2011-2015). In the meantime, numerous efforts from the EC and the field have been carried out: the launch of the Start-up and Scale-up Initiative (2016), which mentions the social economy and social enterprises, was followed by a number of initiatives around five work areas (access to funding; access to markets; improving framework conditions; social innovation, technologies and new business models; international dimension). The interim period of policy discussion and action (2017-2021) has witnessed the coordination and joint action of SSE agents (under the leadership of multiple umbrella organizations, mainly Social Economy Europe and RIPESS Europe) as well as other EU bodies (European Parliament, European Economic and Social Committee), member states active in the Monitoring Committee Luxembourg Declaration, and international organizations (OECD, ILO and the UNTFSSE) around the common agenda of bringing the social economy to the center stage of policy at the EU level. This European Action Plan can be considered the result of this collective effort.
From EMES, we are confident that the European Action Plan will be a key lever to support the emergence of SSE on territories with different degrees of development while contributing to consolidate social economy practices and models and encouraging their study and dissemination. The ultimate goal would be to inspire waves of collaboration driving synergies and the adaptation and replication of well-tested economic models driven by citizens with a social and environmental aim to lead the reconstruction of our future in Europe.
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