Funding Opportunities under the EU Programme for Employment and Social Innovation

New opportunities are arising for fostering social wellbeing in Europe and beyond! Two calls have been launched under the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (“EaSI”). The call are both aimed to actively address the major societal needs of nowadays societies through two different actions: On one side, VP 2020/010 is designed to fund the establishment of national competence centres for social innovation; On the other, VP2020/003 supports the development of policy innovations in the frame of the Principle 14 of the European Pillar of Social Rights providing that “everyone lacking sufficient resources has the right to adequate minimum income benefits ensuring a life in dignity at all stages of life, and effective access to enabling goods and service”.

Competences centres for social innovation (VP 2020/010)

In the current fast-changing world, societal innovation is becoming increasingly important to address the major social and economic trends as the low-carbon economy transition, digitalization, demographic change, migration, and the recent pandemic. In this context, social innovation refers to a set of “activities linked to the development testing, validation and implementation and scaling-up of (a combination of) new products, services, models or practices that meet social needs and resolve societal challenges” (VP 2020/010).

Given the increasing importance attached to social innovation by the new Commission and within the future ESF+ Regulation, the call aims to contribute in the shape the adequate context for societal innovation actions through the establishment, development, and professionalism of organizations

Need to empower social innovation initiatives and partnerships and boost the stakeholders’ capacity to act. The call aims to support the “establishment, development and professionalism of organisations that do or can assume the function of a social innovation competence centre in an EU Member State” (VP 2020/010) acting as a hub for capacity building, transnational transfer of knowledge, creation of synergies, and networking.

The expected outputs of the call include:

• The establishment of a competence centre for social innovation, and its recognition from relevant external stakeholders as well as entitlement to formal endorsement.
• An analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of social innovation and the definition of areas and approaches that can inspire other territories
• A joint blueprint by stakeholders for a social innovation’s strategy and action plan in the country
• A system to pursue ongoing improvements and adaptions of their tools and methodologies, resources, and practices for each competence centre
• A collection of social innovation initiatives initiated or scaled-up

Deadline for submitting proposals: 16^th November 2020

Establishing and testing integrated interventions aimed at support people in (the most) vulnerable situations (VP/2020/003)

Through this call, the European Union wants to address persisting threats to the social and economic wellbeing of people as the lack of long-term employment and activity, and poverty and social exclusion. The need of making social protection and social inclusion as resilient as possible increases and becomes even more urgent in light of the new challenges posed by the COVID-19 crisis, which has further enhanced social disparities and caused constraints to public services’ accessibility and a serious decrease in the employability call.

To counter these trends, the call supports existing or new partnerships in the development and testing of policy innovations and experimentations particularly aimed at the delivery of Principle 14 of the European Pillar of Social Rights through the multi-stakeholder innovative approach.

Deadline for submitting proposals: 15^th October 2020

Izmir Metropolitan Municipality is currently looking for partners to develop a proposal for the call. More information can be found in the dedicated article.

Photo Credits: United Nations COVID-19 Response (Unspalsh)