Social Innovation Europe (SIE) launch the "Financing Social Impact" report: mapping the way forward

(Source: SIE) "Social Innovations are innovations that are social both in their ends and in their means. Specifically, we define social innovations as new ideas (products, services and models) that simultaneously meet social needs (more effectively than alternatives) and create new social relationships or collaborations"

Executive Summary

The field of innovation for social purposes is developing rapidly all over the world, with new institutions and methods, growing confidence and evidence of impact. Social innovators are changing the way governments work, the way civil society achieves impact, and the actions of business.

Social innovations are new ideas, institutions, or ways of working that meet social needs more effectively than existing approaches. Often, social innovation involves the remaking and reuse of existing ideas: the new application of an old idea or the transfer of an idea from one part of the Union to another. The European Commission should aim to showcase and support new approaches, with the aim of adoption by national, regional and local government. It should also be demonstrating new markets with the aim of encouraging adoption by the private sector. Some of the most important growth sectors are likely to include health (already between 5% and 13% of GDP in EU countries and set to rise by 4%

by 20502), education, eldercare, childcare and environmental services (estimates for Europe suggest that 1m jobs could be created from a 20% cut in present energy consumption3). And leading businesses are responding to the growing importance of social economy.

Read the full report in the UE newsroom site