Strengthening the entrepreneurial sustainability in the border region of Slovakia – Austria with social added value

The project Social Entrepreneurship Education and Development Hub (SEED-Hub) supports social businesses and entrepreneurs whose common feature is taking social responsibility while working with innovative and sustainable concepts.
 "Social entrepreneurship" is an umbrella term that stands for a variety of social entrepreneurial forms. SEED-Hub develops specific training offers and builds a Slovak-Austrian network of social enterprises and entrepreneurs that can be active among others in the following business and activity areas: education, labour integration, environmental protection, social assistance, fair trade, social housing, culture and arts, tourism, IT, telecommunications, community development, human rights, etc.

The aim of SEED-Hub is to develop long-term partnerships between social enterprises and entrepreneurs who carry out similar activities in the border regions of both countries, i.e. the Slovak Republic and Austria, face similar challenges and might benefit from a transfer of know-how. In addition, SEED-Hub will contribute to the strengthening of cross-border institutional cooperation by mobilising social economy partners from the public sphere. The project focuses on sustainable growth in the border regions between Vienna, Burgenland, Lower Austria, Bratislava and Trnava and works on the following outcomes:

• A mapping of the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in these border regions complemented by interviews with at least 70 existing and start-up entrepreneurs and organisations about their activities, challenges and cooperation potential with similar organisations in the other country.
   
• Building on the mapping, the SEED-Hub education programme with five modules will be tailor-made to current needs of the social economy. 30 participants from the emerging network in the border regions will be invited via an open call to participate.
   
• An annual Social Business Forum will help to further strengthen cross-border cooperation within the SEED-Hub network.

The project is coordinated by EUBA (Faculty of Economics & Faculty of International Relations of the University of Economics in Bratislava) and supported by the project partners Sociálni inovátori, družstvo (Social Innovators Cooperative), the University of Applied Sciences Burgenland (FHB) in Eisenstadt and the Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI) in Vienna.

SEED-Hub is funded at the rate of 85% by the INTERREG V-A Slovakia-Austria cooperation programme of the European Union and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). 

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Team:

• M.A. Gábor Szüdi, PhD (project leader)
• Magª. Pamela Bartar, MAS
• Eveline Zapfel
• Magª. Andrea Christiane Mayr
• Mag. Wolfgang Michalek

Section: Research Policy & Development

Partners:

• Fachhochschule Burgenland
• Sociálni inovátori (Social Innovators)
• University of Economics in Bratislava (Coordinator)

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Tags: education, SDGs, social entrepreneurship, social innovation