MedTOWN project's International Seminar on Social Innovation & Inclusion

The event aims to maximise synergies between socially innovative projects and establish common reference parameters to evaluate the challenges and the limits of social experimentation and to offer a space of critical reflections and debates. 

Online, hosted by Greece
26th of January 2022. 10.00 am to 12.30 pm Greek time (09.00 to11.30 CET)

Free & open to the public. Previous registration needed.
More info, agenda & registration here

During the Seminar, representatives of different key institutions are invited to reflect upon how social innovation can affect public policies as well as how legal challenges can be overcome. A keynote intervention at the beginning of the event will serve as a baseline for the interventions of the panellists. 

The Seminar focuses on knowledge acquired by social innovation projects with the capacity to transform the way in which the public administration and SSE entities relate to each other. With a twofold approach: Showing how social experimentation and innovation can affect public policies in fighting poverty, inequality and social exclusion; and exploring the limits of regulatory framework to for the development of social innovation projects in the Mediterranean with the support of SSE entities.

With the intention of keeping the Seminar short and specific, more as a dialogue than a succession of detailed explanations of each project, all the projects and initiatives have been invited to develop a short video highlighting the main achievements of their project, the social innovation aspects and the challenges they are facing, with a special focus on the legal barriers. Videos will be available at the MedTOWN Community of Practice platform (CoP), that also allows direct interaction and dialogue between the projects before and after the Seminar.

MedTOWN is a social innovation initiative, which aims to strengthen the role of the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) in the co-production of public goods with local networks and communities, through research and experimentation. Co-production seeks to empower people to achieve well-being outcomes at an individual and service level by involving them in the design and operation of services. MedTOWN embraces the use of social innovations like complementary currencies and promotes the role of social enterprises, co-operatives, user-led services and other forms of SSE as types of organisations that lend themselves well to applying co-production principles because they are often democratic membership organisations.