European Regions Research and Innovation Network (ERRIN)
Social innovation
The Commission will organise two workshops in Brussels on social innovation in 2012 with the participation of 30-50 participants.

The first will be on 'intermediaries for social innovation', such as hubs, accelerators, incubators: March 21-22

This workshop aims to bring together a group of about 40-50 thought leaders and practitioners from social innovation incubators, accelerators and hubs, as well as representatives from business incubators, national and regional policy officials, funders, social economy and companies. Europe has a long tradition in business incubation, particularly in incubation of high-tech firms. How could this experience be transposed to help grow social innovators and social enterprises in Europe? What can we learn from incubators that already target social innovators and social enterprises? And what next steps could be envisaged at regional, national or European levels? As this will be the first time that this diverse group of people will meet to discuss this topic, the workshop will be highly interactive, and could also be a start to build a community for social incubation in Europe.

The second will be on workplace innovation (this is the Northern concept of social innovation) in industry: May 30.
 
ERRIN will attend these workshops but the Commission would be extremely interested to get  names of contacts of about 5 regions that could be keen to participate and learn about setting up support structures for social enterprises and social incubators in their regions or cities.

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