Proximity and social economy industrial ecosystem: boosting the digital transition of social economy enterprises and SMEs

Overview

Objectives

The primary objectives for this call are to strengthen the digital capabilities of SMEs in the proximity & social economy through capacity building and cooperation, and to enhance the digital capacity of ‘enabling organisations’ (organisations that represent or support SMEs in the social economy). A secondary goal is to promote the social economy's role in driving digital solutions for societal challenges.

Activities/actions supported

Applicants must identify and map the main digital needs of target groups and directly support addressing those needs by establishing capacity building activities. In addition to training activities, consortia should organize coaching, mentoring or advisory services, as well as provide financial support to activity participants. Consortia can choose to implement additional mapping and capacity building activities, such as identifying good practices, providing workshops, creating competence compendia, providing policy recommendations, and a range of other activities.

Anticipated outcomes

The proposal aims to increase the digitally skilled workforce in social economy SMEs, increase understanding of how digitalization can support organizational efficiency, increase the use of digital technologies, and improve the Digital Social Innovation (DSI) capacity in social economy ecosystems. Further, the proposal aims to increase the number of tech partnerships and the number of enterprises using social economy models enabled by digital technologies.

Institution providing the funding

European Commission

Size of funding

€8 000 000

Conditions

Overview of eligibility criteria

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

• be legal entities (public or private bodies)
• be established in one of the eligible countries, EU Member States, EEA countries and countries associated to the Single Market Programme, or Ukraine
• be a social economy ‘enabling organisation’ or a support organisation representing social economy entities

Overview of award criteria

The award criteria are the following:

• Relevance (30 points)
• Quality (60 points)
• Impact (10 points)

Maximum points: 100 points. Overall threshold: 70 points.

Procedures

Application procedures

Submission is a 2-step process:

a) create a user account and register your organisation

b) submit the proposal - Access the Electronic Submission System via the Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section.

Application support available

Non-IT related questions should be sent at the lates 5 working days before the submission deadline to the following email address: EISMEA-SMP-COSMEENQUIRIESec [dot] europa [dot] eu (EISMEA-SMP-COSMEENQUIRIES[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu).

Useful links

Link to funding opportunity

Link to the programme for more info