Innovative Tools for Social Economy: The Results of the Social Economy 4Ces project

Some of the main outcomes of Social Economy 4Ces are a podcast dedicated to corporate welfare system, a role-playing game to develop innovative solutions for social projects, new service-learning activities, an Impact Readiness tool to help organisations learn about the social impact of their activities, and a series of challenges to create Business Plans related to new business ideas.

The Department of Management at the University of Bologna participated in Social Economy 4Ces, a project co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliance programme. The results were presented in Brussels during the final conference at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC).

The BeSocial podcast provided a unique opportunity to spread information and promote the corporate welfare system through interviews, debates, and insights. While the “Co-design a Public Funding” role-playing game was designed to actively engage participants in developing innovative solutions for social projects, encouraging collaboration and creativity among students.

Social Economy 4Ces scholars worked on Service-learning activities through the Mentoring programme, and the National Observatory on Social Services. They also developed Impact Readiness, a tool to assess and improve organisations' ability to address and measure the impact of their activities. Furthermore, some working groups created Business Plans aimed at expanding new business ideas to offer to local companies.

The project aimed at developing innovative training methods on Social Economy, through a multi-stakeholder approach. The Department of Management at the University of Bologna contributed to the research phase by testing in real time the innovative training methods created by the scholars.