Social economy clusters

Social economy clusters or “Cluster of social and ecological innovation” are “Groups of social economy enterprises and other related supporting and economic actors that cooperate in a particular location to increase their joint social and ecologic impact by enhancing their cooperation, pooling resources and innovation capacity.“ Some characteristics of Cluster of social and ecological innovation:

• Social economy "clusterisation" is a recent and growing phenomena
• Many of them are organised in a quadruple or quintuple model, meaning bringing together business (social economy and regular business), civil society, research and government.
• CSEI are usually cross-sectoral in terms of sector (NACE). This means they have usually other drivers than just improving the sectoral competitiveness.
• Most pursued social priorities are: job creation and inclusion, social innovation development, local economic development and the development of a local social economy ecosystem in itself.
• Some clusters are developed around a specific physical space or want to pursue their joint activities into such a joint space. These are often organised as open spaces, creative commons and have a variety of activities and services that go beyond pure businesses activity (culture, leisure, housing, etc.).

Find out more about Social Economy clusters through the European Commission’s Expert group on social economy and social enterprises (GECES) launched in 2018.