IFI researchers Johannes Gartner and Matthias Fink contributed to the RurInno EU policy round table “Social Entrepreneurship as Driver of Change in Rural Europe” which took place in Brussels on May 23, 2017.
At this policy round table, leading experts from DG Enterprise, DG Agriculture and Rural Development and European Network for Rural Development among others discussed the insights drawn from the EU H2020 research and training project RurInno. Based on longitudinal in depth case studies the researchers suggest three main focus areas for social entrepreneuship policy: (1) Assign a clear role to social entrepreneurship in rural societies and economies. (2) Facilitate sustainable business models for social innovation. (3) Reinforce voluntarism in social entrepreneurship as a mechanism for social inclusion in rural Europe. The rational for the recommendations is outlined in a recent article in Regions published by the Regional Studies Association: Fink, M., Lang, R. & Richter, R. (2017): Social entrepreneurship in marginalised rural Europe: Towards evidence based policy for enhanced social innovation, Regions 306(1):6-10.
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