“Social Entrepreneurship: A Vector of Change in the EU” - Ljubljana

LJUBLJANA - Impact Economy served on an expert panel at the conference “Social Entrepreneurship: A Vector of Change in the EU”. Held on April 15 and 16, 2011, the conference brought to Slovenia  key representatives of this innovative field, including high-profile Slovenian and European decision makers, academics, politicians and social entrepreneurs from the European Union and South-East Europe.

The conference was organized by the Slovene Institute for strategic and applied research Novum, with the collaboration of Fundació Catalanista i Demòcrata and the European Liberal Forum. The conference was supported by the President of the Republic of Slovenia, Dr. DaniloTürk.

The core focus of the conference was the quest for new instruments to address post-crisis social and ecological challenges, which participants agreed cannot exclusively be addressed with existing tools and simply more public services. Participants assessed the development of social entrepreneurship and the social economy, and its ability to serve as a mediator between the public sector and private sector. The diagnostic concluded that Slovenia and South-East Europe are significantly lagging behind the global and EU trends, lacking:

• General awareness and knowledge about new job creation possibilities and the positive influence on relatively rigid public services that social entrepreneurship could provide;
• Proper fiscal, legal and incentive policies to boost the development of social entrepreneurship.

You can download the conference program here or below.