SITE is one of the research institutes participating in project SEFORÏS that stands for Social Entrepreneurship as a Force for more Inclusive and Innovative Societies. SEFORÏS is a multi-disciplinary research programme, funded by the European Commission, which investigates the potential of social enterprises for extensive social change.

Social entrepreneurship is a growing phenomenon. The very essence of the endeavours of social entrepreneurs is social change. However as demonstrated by examples such as Triodos Bank, social enterprises seem to have more sustainable, stable, and resilient-to-shocks business models as they typically adopt a long-term view of their business, rely on different motivational schemes, and are more embedded in local communities than traditional enterprises.

“The sheer scale and depth at which we are gathering information is unheard of. This database opens up tremendous research opportunities. I’m convinced the evidence will challenge more than one myth about social entrepreneurship. I also believe these data provide an essential, today often lacking, basis for more and better evidence-based policy-making”, says Professor Marieke Huysentruyt.

SEFORÏS sets out to explore the role of social entrepreneurs in reforming European societies, China and Russia. SEFORÏS combines insights from policy makers and 1000 social entrepreneurs with cutting-edge academic research to build robust and novel evidence on social entrepreneurship. SEFORÏS aims to develop theoretical frameworks for inclusion and innovation processes in their local context, employ novel experimentation with social enterprises, build a unique international database of in-depth case studies, and test and validate conclusion using robust longitudinal survey data. SITE is mainly responsible for developing a novel framework of financing modes and models for social entrepreneurs, gathering evidence on the specifics of funding for social entrepreneurs and developing deep cases on social entrepreneurship examining the financing forms. All relevant research publications on the financing of social entrepreneurships will be published on SITE’s website.

We invite you to watch the video interviews with SEFORÏS research team to get insights on the current state of social entrepreneurship within project countries and what needs do the social entrepreneurs have.

To keep up with the latest research and news on social entrepreneurship from Seforis project follow SITE Twitter channel or subscribe to the Seforis newsletter. Discover SEFORÏS country reports about the state of social entrepreneurship in Belgium, China, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain and UK here or read the country report of Sweden on our Slideshare channel below.