Social Innovation takes many different forms across the EU: this richness of experience is what makes the EU an incubator and many of its member states genuine pioneers in this crucial field. You may not think of your organization’s activities as “social innovation”, but in other EU countries what you do might be of vital inspiration for local social innovation. And the experience of other countries might be equally inspiring for you.
Circulation of ideas is the key: for this reason, the ESF+ SI+ initiative and the European Competence Centre for Social Innovation strive to strengthen social innovation by fostering transnational cooperation between participating countries, which contributes to the efficient development and transfer of innovative solutions and facilitates their wider uptake.
To this end, European Competence Centre for Social Innovation invites you to join the Social Innovation Match (SIM) database, created to promote the transfer and scale-up of social innovations across Europe.
Asta Jurgute, head of the Social Innovation Competence Group, has this to say to introduce this important tool: “The SIM database is a perfect platform for sharing successful social innovations, mutual learning, creating transnational cooperations and bringing your organization to a higher operative level threw new partnerships and more ambitious scopes“.
The SIM database helps stakeholders showcase their social innovation examples, search for social innovation projects developed and tested in other countries, contact organizations, and search for potential partners for European calls for transnational projects. In the database, you will find many inspiring social innovation examples among those covered by the ESF+ and beyond.
All interested parties, from project owners to authorities and intermediate bodies, can easily upload a case study about their activities to the SIM database: Submissions are then reviewed, assessed for scope, relevance and quality, and validated before publication.
Proposals on transnational projects and from EU-level organizations will be validated at the EU level by the European Competence Centre for Social Innovation. A national validator with better access to relevant context information will validate local, regional, and national projects.
Once the validation process is finished, the case study will be uploaded to the SIM database. It will become a possible source of inspiration or collaboration for other EU-level stakeholders acting in the field of social innovation.
“Be active, be courageous, be civic minded, and share your national success stories or successful transnational cooperation examples with all the EU! The SIM database, without a doubt, gives a lot of new possibilities of visibility and recognition for you and your organization”, Jurgute adds.
Instructions on how to upload a case study on the SIM database and other relevant information can be found on THE SIM DATABASE FACT SHEET.
If you have any questions regarding SIM, please contact the European Competence Centre for Social Innovation by e-mail at: SIM@esf.lt
Let your successful social innovation experience work throughout the EU!