European Commission: Incubators (business support organisations) for Inclusive and Social Entrepreneurship

Deadline extended till 25 May 2020

The European Commission has announced a Call for Proposals for “Incubators (business support organisations) for inclusive and social entrepreneurship”.

This call aims at mobilising existing network(s) of mainstream business incubators to expand their outreach to inclusive and social entrepreneurship.

To achieve this, the supported action shall draw from the experience of support organisations and networks already targeting social entrepreneurs and (potential) entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups. Optimally, this will be combined with support for scaling and replication of social enterprise and social innovation business ideas through dissemination of knowledge and understanding of potential market opportunities in other territories.

This call for proposals is financed under the European Programme for Employment and Social Innovation “EaSI” 2014-20202 which is a European-level financing instrument managed directly by the European Commission to contribute to the implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy, by providing financial support for the Union’s objectives in terms of promoting a high level of quality and sustainable employment, guaranteeing adequate and decent social protection, combating social exclusion and poverty and improving working conditions.

Funding Information

The total budget earmarked for the EU co-financing of projects under this call is estimated at 1 300 000 EUR.
The EU grant requested should indicatively be between EUR 1 000 000 and EUR 1 300000.
The indicative duration of the project should be 24 months.

The types of activities which may be funded under this call for proposals can include:

Gathering, production and diffusion of relevant information materials;
Study visits and exchange of good practices;
Training activities, webinars, seminars, conferences, etc;
Developing business support services for inclusive and social entrepreneurs, including toolkits, templates, manuals and other support material;
Actions aiming at creating and improving connections to stakeholders in inclusive and social entrepreneurship;
Awareness and dissemination actions amongst the network’s members and towards the wider audience.

Geographical Location

To be eligible, actions must be fully carried out in eligible participating EaSI countries.

Expected Results

The funded action is expected to mobilise as many individual member incubators of the network(s) as possible to integrate inclusive and social entrepreneurship systematically in their service offer and consequently to better address the relevant target groups (including social entrepreneurs) in their own territory.
In addition to this direct mobilisation of member incubators, the action is expected to have a lasting spill-over effect in terms of wider attention paid to the issues of inclusive and social entrepreneurship in the countries directly involved and possibly beyond these countries.
Applications shall provide quantitative targets to be achieved for the different activities proposed.

Eligibility Criteria

Legal entities properly established and registered in the following countries are eligible as single, lead applicant, co-applicants
- EU Member States;
- Iceland and Norway in accordance with the EEA Agreement;
- Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.
To be eligible, the single, lead applicant, co-applicant and affiliated entity must be:
- a public or private entities of any type;
- legally established in one of the EaSI participating countries.
- an established formal network of business incubators with its own legal personality or representing (as a joint secretariat or officially appointed coordinator) an established formal network. A consortium of several established networks is eligible.
To be eligible, the single applicant must:
- have members established in at least 14 EU Member States and in at least one nonEU EaSI participating country.
If a single applicant is considered not eligible, the application will be rejected.
For British Applicants: please be aware that following the entry into force of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement on 1 February 2020 and in particular Articles 127(6), 137 and 138, the references to natural or legal persons residing or established in a Member State of the European Union are to be understood as including natural or legal persons residing or established in the United Kingdom. UK residents and entities are therefore eligible to participate under this call.