2,4 million EU grant on Social Innovation and Civic Engagement

Over the course of the last year, Academic Director, Paul du Gay, and members of the Public-Private Platform and the CBS Center for Civil Society Studies have been working with colleagues throughout Europe in preparing a research project proposal – Social Innovation and Civic Engagement (ITSSOIN) - under the EU’s Framework 7 Programme. The proposal has now been funded and the project, which begins in March, will bring around 2.4 million DKK to CBS.

The project focuses on the relationship between social innovation and civic engagement, and is co-ordinated by the highly respected Center for Social Investment at the University of Heidelberg. In essence, the project seeks to explore the oft made assertion that the Third Sector is better equipped to foster social innovation than either the state or the market. The team aims to build a set of testable hypotheses that relate to key characteristics of the Third Sector e.g. 1) strong value sets; 2) persistent multi-stakeholder constellations; 3) the mobilisation of multiple resources, and to test these on the qualitative impacts of the Third Sector in terms of capital building (e.g. social networks, cultural values, or political participation) and their direct link to social innovation.

The project will study specific fields across nine EU countries, including 1) arts and culture, 2) social services and health, 3) environmental sustainability and consumer protection in finance and 4) work integration and community development. The CBS team, which will be led by the CBS Center for Civil Society Studies headed by Professor Anker Brink Lund, will be responsible for co-ordinating the Working Package on environmental sustainability and consumer protection in finance. The CBS team will also work closely with the Public-Private Platform’s strategic partner The Danish Ministry of the Environment and MindLab.’

For more information on the project please contact professor Anker Brink Lund abl.dbp@cbs.dk