The overall objective of the SEEING project is, through collaboration of relevant local partnerships from three EU countries, to identify, measure and approve good practices that are likely to be reproduced in other EU countries and regions, which can support the use of social economy enterprises as a strategic means to create social innovation, inclusion and inclusive growth.
Across Europe, the number of vulnerable citizens excluded from the labour market is increasing. The unemployment rate in Europe currently stands at 10 %, with around 1/3 of these individuals defined as long term unemployed (persons with continuous unemployment for more than 12 months). A large proportion of these people are presumed to be vulnerable citizens with official statistics from Eurostat showing that 45.3 % of unemployed people in Europe are at risk of having an income below the poverty rate
This situation presents many challenges for our society. As experience has shown, exclusion from the labour market can have implications upon individual health and wellbeing (often due to reduced social contact). This exclusion presents burdens on society, due to an increase in public costs to address its consequences (such as those mentioned above). Resources are also lost when individuals are made passive due to unemployment.
Therefore it is important to develop and implement innovative models, which focus on how these citizens can stay in the labour market under flexible and individualised conditions. Focusing strategically on social economy enterprises as a means to create inclusive growth, could be much better explored as an option as a model of good practice based on new kinds of co-operation and local partnerships. Experiences from collaborative work in the UK show, that there is not only a clear role for social economy enterprises to play in supporting vulnerable citizens, but also to further exploit the potential of a closer and more strategic collaboration between the public sector, conventional enterprises and other social economy enterprises.
Despite recognition, on a European level, of the positive social and economic impacts of social economy enterprises, it is still challenging for organisations working on a regional and local level to gain overall recognition and support for activities and interventions with a social economy aspect. This is because of a) missing strategic perspective, b) challenges of addressing the traditional market economy thinking of profit-making enterprises and c) little or difficult access to venture capital willing to invest in social economy enterprises. In order for social economic enterprises to work optimally and become an accepted means to create social inclusion and inclusive growth, these three fundamental factors have to be considered, which will be the overall focus are for this project, and where innovative models will be presented and disseminated to a wider reproduction around Europe.