BuiCaSuS has been selected as one of the six consortia by the European Commission to work on competence centres for social innovation for the next 2 years. It has been a long way to get here but now (2021) it is time to make it happen!
What is BuiCaSuS all about?
BuiCaSuS is a partnership between 4 European countries: France, Latvia, Spain, and Sweden. All together we add up to 127.114.228 European citizens.
This is what BuiCaSuS is all about: society and this is where our name comes from, BuiCaSuS Building Capacity for a Sustainable Society. By this, we mean a more sustainable Europe based on transnational shared knowledge and experiences in the realm of social innovation.
The project is funded by the European Social Fund and European Programme for Employment and Social Innovation.
Kick-off: the journey to get here
In August and September 2020 we started an intense process of partner search. Our proposal was finally formulated from October to November of 2020. Now, during the Kick-Off phase, the partners were asked to reaffirm and finetune their contribution to the project and to make it a practical offer to all parties.
Online meeting among all BuiCaSuS partners, 28th June 2021. The “Zero Meeting” of the management committee on the 28th of June 2021 agreed to an initial phase of planning and reassertion of project outcomes.
Despite pandemic fatigue and an unsynchronized vacation calendar between Southern and Northern Europe, the months of July and August are used to programme the upcoming activities as well as to reach out to the respective local constituencies.
5 BuiCaSuS Goals
This is what we want to achieve and will work towards over the next 2 years.
1. Moving towards sustainable societies in EU countries.
We share a common diagnosis that our societies face great and many challenges. A new way to generate ideas and translate them into shared practice is needed. We trust in the collective intelligence to navigate the change.
2. Transnational exchange for social innovation
To be able to establish Blueprint and National Action Plans.
As Europeans, we are convinced we can learn from each other. While context matters, looking over the borders inspires and makes you think out of the box. We are eager to look over the fence.
3. Networking, synergies and resources for social innovation
That is why we want to create Competence Centres (CCSI) for this purpose.
There are tools that have proven to be helpful. Giving systematic support in identifying and upscaling social innovation needs a set of specific skills. We can define these.
4. Capacity-building among stakeholders to upscale social innovation
We expect to achieve this by collecting initiatives, replicating, and testing pilot projects.
Agents that nurture social innovation can work both in the public administration, the private sector or the third sector. Their way of getting things done can be understood and transmitted. We strive to train effective change-makers.
5. Raising awareness of the “social innovation” concept
Our commitment to this goal is analysing strengths, weaknesses and inspiration while mapping national initiatives.
The promises of “progress” and “development” have lost direction. Social innovation directs collective brainpower to where it matters most. Many precious initiatives emerge below the radar of traditional policymaking. We want to make them visible.
References
Here you can find more about the official EU call for proposals: the description of the action, the financial guidelines or what do we have to report by the end of the project.
In case you want to check all other grants awarded as a result of the call for proposals VP/2020/010: EaSI – National Competence Centres for Social Innovation, ours is the reference number VP/2020/010/0126.
Other EU Social Innovation organisations and projects can be found on our Social innovation page.
