IBESI · Integrated Baltic Ecosystem for Social Innovation

Social entrepreneurship is still developing in the Baltic States. There are low numbers of social enterprises (SEs), and most of them lack profit-generating business models. Moreover, social entrepreneurs lack connections with the overall innovation ecosystem. The goal of the Integrated Baltic Ecosystem for Social Innovation project (IBESI) is to ease the access of Baltic States’ social entrepreneurs to the resources of innovation ecosystems. Two objectives will help to achieve this goal. First, the project aims to strengthen the social economy of the Baltic States by integrating social innovation actors with existing entrepreneurship ecosystems. Second, it aims to increase the number of the region’s social economy actors having strong entrepreneurial skills. The project also intends to encourage the transfer of knowledge and interlinking between a more mature social innovation market - the Nordics - and Baltic States as well as between social innovation actors within the region. The activities of the IBESI project target key challenges preventing the development of the social economy in the region. Social innovation training for hubs will improve entrepreneurs’ knowledge about social innovation and their motivation to contribute to this sector. Hackathons aim to decrease the lack of SEs in the region, while accelerators that partly rely on the knowledge transfer between social entrepreneurs and experts from other sectors will ensure that social entrepreneurs have the competencies necessary to develop successful SEs. The mapping of the social finance ecosystems in the region and crowdfunding pilots will improve SEs confidence to apply various financial strategies, while Nordic/Baltic workshops for investors will encourage impact investments. The reports, study visits and workshops for policymakers intend to scale successful innovation models from the Nordic to the Baltic countries.