The Competence Center for Social Innovation acts as a central point of contact for social innovation stakeholders in the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) and beyond in Austria and supports the participatory development, testing and scaling of socially innovative projects. It offers numerous services: from the preparation of knowledge, methods and know-how to the documentation and monitoring of good practice examples, the creation of networking opportunities and the establishment of spaces for the co-creative development, testing and scaling of sustainable solutions.

SI plus project partners:

• L&R Social Research Institute

• arbeit plus

• DIALOGPLUS,

• Center for Social Innovation (ZSI)

• Competence Center for Non-profit Organizations and Social Entrepreneurship

We contribute our scientific expertise and lead a work package for the scaling of socially innovative projects in close cooperation with the ZSI.

Background of the project

From 2021 to 2023, the Austrian project “SI plus - Competence Center for Social Innovation” was already implemented by arbeit plus and L&R Social Research and supported by Dialog Plus on the topic of participation. The related work clearly showed that there is great potential for social innovation in Austria, both in the ESF+ context and beyond. However, the results also show that although many different actors are working on the topic, they are anchored in different funding structures and hardly coordinate and exchange information. In order to establish social innovation in the long term, particularly in the ESF+ context, a national competence center was set up with the continuation of SI plus, which is to run until 2028. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Economic Affairs and the European Union as part of the ESF+.

Objectives

The objectives of this national competence center (SI plus) are to intensify structured networking and cooperation at regional, national and transnational level, to create a central point of contact for issues relating to social innovation and a documentation and monitoring point for social innovation, to scale up and mainstream social innovation, and to transfer knowledge and make know-how accessible to a broad public in order to motivate participation and raise awareness of social innovation. To achieve these goals, the SI plus Competence Center will offer a series of knowledge transfer and networking events and publish resources and methodologies during the project period.

One of the first results of our project is a report on the Austrian social innovation ecosystem. This report examines the dynamic “social innovation ecosystem” and provides a comprehensive overview of the actors, measures and support services that drive the promotion of social innovation in Austria. As ecosystems are constantly evolving and reacting to external influences and changing framework conditions, the social innovation ecosystem also remains in flux.

We therefore cordially invite all stakeholders, initiatives and programs to participate in this discussion and to provide us with information on which activities and support services can still be supplemented.