From Cork City Council
2021 will be a crucial year for social enterprises with the adoption of the very first EU Action Plan on social economy. All European institutions are committed to supporting the social economy so it can grow stronger and increase its visibility especially in the light of the fight against the economic and social consequences of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Social economy has a key role to play in the recovery. Against this background, FOSO-POCO is a project commissioned by the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) and the European Commission Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) to understand and assist in overcoming the challenges facing social enterprises in Europe. FOSO-POCO focuses on creating better understanding of the conditions for social entrepreneurship by directly involving relevant actors and stakeholders in efforts to identify and address existing gaps in the supports for social enterprises.
The project has 3 specific objectives:
- Creating better understanding of the state-of-play and potential of social entrepreneurship locally, by identifying and directly involving the relevant stakeholders and the use of best practices and expert involvement to address existing gaps in supports available;
- Assisting promising social enterprises to pilot, pitch and internationalise their product or services through the networks of the project partners;
- Establishing local supports to assist social enterprises in a post-Covid economy which hopefully results in furthering their viability and job creation prospects.
The partners in this project are Cork City Council, Tartu City Government and Malta Enterprise, who are the lead partner.
1st workshop of Project
Cork City Council is hosting a half day, on-line workshop on July 21st, 2021 to discuss the theme of Establishing local supports to assist social enterprises in a post-Covid economy to further their viability and job creation prospects. This is a workshop that will be of tremendous interest to social enterprises, policy makers, support organisations and researchers in Ireland, Estonia and Malta. We would be delighted if you could save the date. The registration form and agenda will be circulated shortly.
To find out more about FOSO-POCO, check https://www.corkcity.ie/en/doing-business-in-cork/european-projects/foso-poco
Please keep the time free in your diary.
July 21st, 9.00AM to 12.45PM
We would also be grateful if you could take the time to complete a short survey on the experiences of social enterprises that we are undertaking as part of the project. The survey will only take about 10 minutes to complete.
The link to the survey can be found at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ijtUS2TvIc49885Xq1WiBSgSH1QNRqnnFfm8ihUXj8Q
If you have any questions, please get back to me.
Regards
Donal Guerin
Senior Staff Officer
Economic Development
Strategic & Economic Development Directorate
