RESIST – Regional ecosystems for social innovation & social transformation

Social innovators and social entrepreneurs play an important role in finding creative and unconventional solutions to current societal and ecological challenges. To be able to turn good ideas into practice they need help – in terms of qualification, funding and access to markets and cooperation partners. Regional public authorities, business support organisations and sectoral agencies in the Baltic Sea Region are already very effectively providing such support to mainstream innovators and entrepreneurs. However, despite recent efforts, they have yet to provide targeted support for social entrepreneurship.

Under the leadership of the Ministry of Economics and Innovation of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, the partnership consists of 13 partner organisations from seven countries in the Baltic Sea region. The project team aims to establish and develop SI/SE ecosystems on a regional level. The aim is to make conventional innovation support more accessible for social entrepreneurship and to strengthen cross-sectoral co-operation between administration, (social) economy and civil society. For this purpose, various mutually inspiring Clusters of Social and Ecological Innovation (CSEI) will be established in the partner regions. The project is situated right at the interface between business and society and, by promoting social innovation, strengthens both economic competitiveness and resilience as well as social cohesion in the Baltic Sea region.