ESF-SI-2023-NCC-01-0003

SEED2SCALE is one of the five projects supported under the Call on building-up and consolidating the capacities of national competence centres for social innovation, launched under the Social Innovation+ initiative. The call contributes to:

• Enhancement of professionalisation and further development of  NCCs that already exist or are being created in the EU Member States which participated in the 2020 call;
• Creation of NCCs in the Member States where they were not created under the 2020 call.

The SEED2SCALE project aims to establish and activate 5 NCCs in the involved partner Countries: Croatia, Greece, Italy, Romania and Slovenia.  It builds on the legacy of the SEED project developed between 2021 and 2023 where the blueprints for the competence centres were outlined in a co-design process involving not only the project partners, but also a wider ecosystem of stakeholders.

The ambition of SEED2SCALE is to reach a more mature stage of the NCCs where each of them can rely on a defined legal framework and has developed and implemented effective and shared governance and business models. This process includes a deeper analysis of the contextual frameworks in each Country, as well as a constant dialogue with the ESF+ Managing Authorities and the ecosystems of innovation (including lower level of governance, the private for-profit sector, the nonprofit sector, community-based groups, individual innovators). This exchange will be crucial in the process of better defining the competences that the NCCs have to develop to play a relevant role in fostering new relationships within the SI ecosystems, identifying, supporting and upscaling best practices, offering professional resources, raising the awareness and knowledge of the impact of the Social Innovation approach on a number of policies.

During three years (June 2024-June 2027) NCCs in the SEED2SCALE consortium engage in activities on: 

• Building and continuously improving the professional capacities on national competence centres for supporting social innovation;
• Developing and nurturing sustainable relationships, networks, collaborations, synergies and learning partnerships;
• Creating, developing and operating a resource centre and a hub for social innovation;
• Facilitating and supporting social innovation initiatives;
• Raising awareness and providing guidance and training;
• Disseminating information on the available funding;
• Mobilising and empowering stakeholders to develop and continuously improve policies and actions for supporting social innovations.

Expected outputs at the national level: 

• Fully operational NCC serving as a local hub of expertise, professional resources, partnership, and development within their respective countries;
• A national strategy and action plan.

Expected outputs at the transnational level: 

• Professional transnational networks and working groups for mutual learning, facilitation in the transnational replication / mainstreaming / scaling-up of social innovation initiatives.  

Funding: 1,559,074 Eur