The purpose of this course is to expose students to relevant knowledge, insight and skills necessary to know and understand the ecosystem where the social economy and social enterprises thrive in Europe. To achieve this goal this course will survey its origin and evolution as a national reality in the major countries of the European Union from a social, economic and political perspective. For this vision to be thorough and complete, we will study the perspective adopted by the European Commission as reflected in its institutional tools and channels (regulations, experts group, mapping, etc.) which take into account the different national realities of social enterprises in Member States and exchange of feedback between these and the Commission. In addition, the presence of the social economy and social enterprises in other European institutions, such as the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee, will also be included.
The EU-centred perspective on social enterprise will be counterbalanced with more bottom-up experiences that have also helped shape the ecosystem across the 28 Member States. Be it networks of support of social economy organizations, communities of interest of social entrepreneurs and supporters, research initiatives or the collective action of citizens, different ways of supporting the development of social enterprises exist. Indeed, it is the combination and interaction of these two dynamics (top-down and bottom-up) that contribute to explain how the social enterprise ecosystem has evolved across different geographic regions in Europe.
