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Solidarity City is a media project of Cooperative City Magazine to promote and strengthen social and solidarity economy practices throughout Europe. Taking Vienna as its starting point, the project aims at mapping initiatives that focus on social inclusion, fair employment, participation, sustainable food systems, ethical consumption and responsible tourism, and exploring their achievements and challenges, as well as telling their stories and helping them gain visibility.
EESIP, the European Energy Social Innovation Platform, is designed with one purpose in mind: to empower and support professionals in the renewable energy sector specifically working on social innovation and citizen engagement.
This platform enables professionals not only to gather information and knowledge, but also to share good practices and new resources and work collaboratively.
Blockchain has long been seen as an important tool to support initiatives focusing on social impact, and today there are hundreds of organisations around the world looking to implement blockchain in areas ranging from banking the unbanked and providing identity services for vulnerable populations to protecting land rights and combating climate change.
At our “Use cases for in social impact” workshop, held in Barcelona on 30 January, 2020, we took a deep dive into the subject with a number of practitioners working on the front lines of blockchain for good. Below are some highlights from the day.
Today, we are in good relations with public administrations. The 2016-2018 has been a sweet period! Thanks to the recent big social mobilization which took place here in Barcelona, we experience a change in the local and regional government that is beneficial for us. In Catalonia, there is a network of municipalities engaging into social solidarity economy and the network is lead by the city of Barcelona. The Region promotes cooperative economy with European Funds, which aim at the creation of new employment opportunities and the opening of new cooperatives. Nowadays, many social and solidarity organizations receive money to promote the growth of new cooperatives and the transformation to cooperatives of already existing businesses.
In order to ensure the social and political desirability of the energy transition, Jacques Delors, founding president of the Institute, Sofia Fernandes and Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, senior research fellow and research fellow of the Jacques Delors Institute, propose the adoption of a Social Pact for the Energy Transition to be agreed by the EU, the Member States, regions, cities and social partners. This is the best way to guarantee the “just transition” the Paris Agreement calls for, and to improve the living and working conditions for all Europeans as to achieve the “socially-fair energy transition” the European Commission promotes.
The Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), the Next generation internet foundation (FING), GreenIT.fr and WWF France have collaborated to contribute to the discussion around the possible types of action that public authorities—at the national as well as local levels—could undertake in order to leverage the digital transition to drive the ecological transition. We have also benefited from the contribution of several other actors, foremost among which are the French Digital Council (Conseil national du numérique) and the Transitions2 network (réseau Transitions2).
Community-led innovation has experienced significant growth and support in the past few years, as reflected in the Social Innovation Community (SIC) community-led innovation network – a group of people across Europe dedicated to developing and disseminating community-led innovation tools, methods and ideas. Monica Nagore and Rebecca Watterson from The Young Foundation are coordinating the community-led innovation network. In this article, Rebecca shares some insights into how we can support communities to build and tell their own stories, and why this is crucial to community-led innovation.
The Thriving Places Index is the most comprehensive analysis of how well local authorities are doing at creating the conditions for people to thrive ever undertaken. Data from 150 local authorities in England was assessed against three main categories – local conditions, sustainability and equality – supported by 48 separate indicators including health, education and work.
The future of urban development and co-creation of solutions to challenges cities are facing were at the core of discussions at the City Development Forum held in Poznan (PL) on 6 and 7 December 2017. Speakers included city leaders such as Jacek Jaśkowiak, Mayor of Poznan (PL), Paweł Adamowicz, Mayor of Gdansk (PL), Giuseppe De Biasi, Chief of Cabinet of the Metropolitan City of Bologna (IT) and Andriy Moskalenko, Deputy of Lviv City (UA) as well as a mix of sociologists, economists, urban planners, academics, business owners and innovation and design specialists. With more than 400 delegates from all over Europe, they discussed issues such as: How to stimulate, foster and support increased civic participation; The importance of integrated policy making in urban development; The changing face of sustainable urban mobility; The role of Technology in shaping the future of a ‘Smart City’; The role of the Cultural and Creative Industries in Placemaking; and Utilising ‘design thinking’ to develop effective policy interventions;
“Kerkrade is proud of its Super Circular Estate project which sees the restructuring of a large residential area in a highly innovative and for the most part previously unseen manner. The results of this project will deliver a considerable Contribution to future sustainable urban restructuring developments, in which not only materials are reused but also residents' thoughts and ideas play an integral part.”
Tim Weijers, Deputy Mayor of Kerkrade in charge of spatial planning and public housing.
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Urban Development and Services Initiative has released its new whitepaper on Collaboration in Cities: From Sharing to ‘Sharing Economy’ . This report demystifies the new sharing economy vocabulary, explains key drivers for sharing, and the opportunities for cities to engage and drive sharing practices. It also explores how cities can leverage the potential of the sharing economy in use of municipal goods, spaces, and civic assets such as the talents and skills of city residents.
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Social innovations have proven to be valuable in identifying, designing and implementing new solutions to social and environmental problems. The recent COVID-19 outbreak has put a spotlight on the potential of social innovation as a resilience mechanism, including for local development. This paper presents a preliminary framework for analysing social innovation ecosystems at the local level. It can help policy makers to better understand the different concepts around social innovation, and to develop policies to support social innovation and its implementation. The first section considers the features of social innovation and the benefits it can bring. The second section provides an analytical framework for social innovation at the local level. The final section sets a number of guidelines that support the implementation of social innovation ecosystems at local level, including examples of specific policy instruments.
L’urbanisme temporaire – en réinventant la gestion des espaces inoccupés – permet de répondre au paradoxe de la vacance immobilière tout en œuvrant à la réalisation des objectifs stratégiques de l’Union européenne en matière d’innovation sociale, comme d’économie circulaire. À travers cette note d’analyse coéditée avec la plateforme Communa, POUR LA SOLIDARITÉ-PLS vous invite à une réflexion sur l’immense potentiel de cette pratique qui, organisée de manière à servir l’intérêt collectif, apporte des solutions immédiates et concrètes à de nombreux défis que connaissent nos villes.
Das Packhaus is a project of Paradocks an international think- and do-tank for reuse of vacant buildings inVienna. Since 2014 Das Packhaus has been showing the potential for temporary use in the city of Vienna thanks to a community of 85 companies coming from different fields. A place where companies can support each other and where the city can benefit from an original semi-public space.
In a recent report from the Right to Energy Coalition, Bulgaria and Hungary showed extreme levels of energy poverty; Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic had better rankings, but local experts say that may reflect a lack of data more than reality. OVER-EXPOSED, a new essay from EnAct explores diverse situations in these five countries,…
Fifteen years ago, Zaragoza - the historic Spanish city situated between Madrid and Barcelona - pioneered a vision of a future digital district and knowledge-based society. Since then, the city has developed an impressive portfolio of smart city projects and new urban services. According to Daniel Sarasa, Urban Innovation Planner in Zaragoza and internationally recognized smart city innovator, one of Zaragoza's unique strengths is its culture of citizen involvement and participation. This culture has its roots in the reawakening of democracy. In the late 1970s, the city of Zaragoza (like other cities in Spain) looked back on thirty five years of dictatorship – and looked ahead to an uncertain future. During the years of dictatorship, Zaragoza had grown in population from approximately 235,000 to more than 500,000, but the civic infrastructure and public services needed to support this urban growth were inhibited by an autocratic national government which maintained severe austerity measures.
Sonar est conçu pour vous aider à diagnostiquer à quel stade votre collectivité se trouve, et répondre à des questions telles que : Quelles sont les formes d’innovation à votre disposition et comment les combiner en fonction de votre situation ? comment passer de l’innovation « au coup par coup » à une démarche de changement systémique et progressive ? Par quoi commencer, quelles sont les étapes, les pièges à éviter ? Comment aller plus loin, et transformer dès en amont votre façon de concevoir et mettre en oeuvre des politiques publiques ?
European society is facing dramatic changes. Despite all its benefits, the innovation society is part of the problem. Social innovation can be part of the solution. Launched in 2010 within Europe2020, social innovation has spread in policy, practice, and research with increasing impact on the economy and society. In this paper we take stock of the main results – whether derived from European initiatives or not - and map the main opportunities and actions required to drive social innovation to the next phase and deliver for a better society.
Financial instability, resources crisis, political disengagement and pressing unmet needs lead us to a need for new ways of thinking. Organisations and communities are showing an increasing ability to find practical and innovative ways to deal with difficulties they meet locally whether they have the legal competence to do so or not. Many practitioners and policymakers are looking for ideas and solutions to address issues and problems and meet citizens’ needs. These solutions may have been addressed and managed successfully before in other places.
In the European Union, 32% of regional assembly members and 36% of municipal council members are women and only 15% of mayors are women.
The Gender Pay Gap persists. Women in Europe earn on average around 17% less than men.
In the past urban planning has been a male dominated field and there is now a re-thinking of planning and public space to become more gender sensitive
Women are often disproportionately adversely affected by austerity measures, demographic shifts and migration.
Closing these gender gaps is an imperative that brings benefits for all. Gender equality is not only a democratic principle and a human right, enshrined in the EU Treaties; it is also a fundamental requirement for the equal sharing of power and justice and for the well-being of communities. Equality of women and men - in practice - is an essential component for economic growth and prosperity. We know, for instance, that bridging the gender pay gap would significantly increase GDP globally. United Nations research shows that when there are more women involved in public service delivery within public administrations there is better financial inclusion; improved education delivery; higher sanitation levels and enhanced healthcare.
This paper presents a possible new approach to the management of urban spaces reflecting the current challenges in spatial development based on the theory of commons and innovative governance modes. The new approach is built on innovations in institutional regimes, the algorithm of decision-making and economic expression and interpretation of quality of the space. The theory of the commons as the base source for this approach has been broadly proved in practice and Elinor Ostrom as the author of this theory [3-5] was awarded by Nobel Prize in 2009.
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