The collaboration between academics and practitioners in the social economy of the Liverpool city-region brings together a range of people from the public and private sectors and aims over time to provide more opportunity for social and economic development in the city-region by stimulating the generation of new ideas, alternative views and social innovation that can provide greater potential for wealth generation and the basis for a fairer distribution of resources. The lead actors in this initiative are the Social Enterprise Network, working closely with the Liverpool city Mayor’s office, and the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy and Practice based at the University of Liverpool. Critical to this work has been the need for a performative research agenda that places people who work in the social economy at the centre of knowledge exchange, policy and practice to shape the strategic direction of the LCR social and solidarity economy.

The development of sound local Active Inclusion Partnerships for persons at high risk of poverty constitutes a key challenge in the context of the sharp financial crisis that has been affecting Greece since 2009. In this respect, with the support of the Athens Technology University, the City of Athens has designed a Local Strategy on Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which introduces new values and principles regarding the cooperation between local governments and social and solidarity economy actors. Implemented since 2013, this initiative has received feedback through an open public consultation process and is supported by national and EU resources. It has established a new operational framework for the development of networks between the Municipality and SSE actors, particularly social enterprises, with regards to social inclusion, a field of utmost priority for national, regional and local social policy makers.

We develop tools that support SSE project developpers in order to improve their performance and enable entrepreneurship. Our interventions are multiple, diverse and arise from various institutions. They aim to develop a territorial SSE strategy and to develop synergy between the different stakeholders. Many axes are developed, in particular the creation of a regional SSE platform gathering public, territorial, civil society and private sector institutions and the dissemination of information to two stakeholders: the SSE project developpers and the organisations that develop public policy for the SSE.
The improvements in the living conditions of the project developpers are significant but there are also challenges: trust, culture, sectoriality and lack of entrepreneurial skills. The presentation will cover a general outline of this work, the stages of its development, the advantages, the constraints experienced, as well as the results achieved.

In order to promote the inclusion and generation of revenues, the city of São Paulo has implemented a solidarity economy strategy for the city through multiple actions of the government and partnerships with NGOs. At present, 3.2 billion reais will have been invested in this strategy, mainly aimed at promoting incubation processes and the access to the market of social economy enterprises through training and technical and professional advice. This result is derived from the articulation of different programs as well as the use of the purchasing power of the State. The strategy also covers the “Sao Paulo Open Arms” solidarity economy program for the psycho-social rehabilitation of people in a situation of social vulnerability and substance abuse through the purveyance of accomodation, food the chance to work as a means to reduce misdemeanours.