Social Innovation Across the Baltic States and Sweden: Four Countries, Four Unique Approaches
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Social Innovation Across the Baltic States and Sweden: Four Countries, Four Unique Approaches

As social challenges evolve, countries across Europe are taking innovative approaches to strengthen social entrepreneurship and address community needs. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Sweden demonstrate how tailored strategies can support social innovation while reflecting unique national priorities.

Estonia: A “Thin State” Model for Social Innovation

Estonia focuses on efficiency by working with local organizations and communities instead of depending on a large government system. This model, led by the Ministry of the Interior and supported by civil society advisors in each of Estonia’s 15 counties, focuses on creating policies that are co-designed with community stakeholders.The country’s decision not to strictly define social enterprises gives them the flexibility to quickly adapt to new challenges. This “thin state” model ensures that local voices play a central role in shaping policies, showing how agile collaboration can make a bigger impact.

Latvia: The Power of Regulation

In 2018, Latvia implemented the Social Enterprise Law, defining social enterprises as limited liability companies with a primary focus on social impact. Organizations that register under this framework can get tax benefits, access to public resources, and grants for employing marginalized groups. However, strict eligibility requirements ensure accountability, with enterprises required to reinvest profits and submit annual impact reports. While this regulated framework supports transparency, it also presents challenges for organizations navigating compliance. Latvia’s approach shows how balancing regulation and support can help build a strong social enterprise ecosystem.

Lithuania: Building an Emerging Ecosystem

Lithuania is gradually formalizing its social enterprise framework, positioning itself as a future leader in social innovation. Though less structured than Latvia, the country’s initiatives encourage partnerships between social enterprises and government agencies. Programs like Innovation Labs are encouraging collaboration while working to define clearer eligibility criteria for funding. Lithuania’s efforts show how creating a supportive environment for social enterprises can help them grow as new policies emerge, leading to a thriving landscape for innovation.

Sweden: Integrating Social Enterprises into Public Funding

In Sweden, social enterprises are finding new opportunities to scale through integration with public funding systems. The example of Järva Gymnasium showcases this approach. Founded by Amir Sajadi, it is a community-centered educational institution specifically designed to meet the needs of a diverse, low-income student population in Sweden. By securing government-backed funding based on enrollment, the school enjoys financial stability typically reserved for public institutions. This innovative model enables Järva Gymnasium to focus on long-term goals, demonstrating how stable public funding can empower social enterprises to achieve sustained community impact.

Key Lessons Learnt

Across these countries, certain themes emerge:

  • Collaboration Matters: Estonia’s emphasis on cross-sector partnerships demonstrates the power of pooling expertise and resources to address complex challenges.

  • Flexibility vs. Regulation: Latvia’s strict framework contrasts with Estonia’s flexible approach, showing there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for developing social innovation.

  • The Role of Public Funding: Sweden’s integration of social enterprises into government systems highlights the importance of stable financial support for long-term impact.

  • Grassroots Innovation: Localized initiatives, such as Lithuania’s Innovation Labs or Järva Gymnasium’s tailored educational model, highlight the value of addressing specific community needs.

As these countries continue to refine their approaches, they provide valuable insights for cultivating impactful social enterprises across the globe.

You can read the full Social Innovation Best Practices Report here.

The article and the report were created as part of the Integrated Baltic Ecosystem for Social Innovation (IBESI) project by Reach for Change, Baltic Innovation Agency / BIA, Katalista Ventures, Sotsiaalsete Ettevõtete Võrgustik (Social Enterprise Estonia) and funded by the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA).

GAMIFICATION Online breakout rooms as a non-formal education tool – project CO-ART
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GAMIFICATION
Online breakout rooms as a non-formal education tool – project CO-ART

Any type of education nowadays is undergoing major changes, dealing with limited attention spans and the undeniable growth in importance of digital approaches. Nonetheless, the Pandemic showed us that prolonged and monotonous screen time is neither efficient, nor preferred. In project CO-ART, the partners from six countries have developed 24 unique online escape rooms to improve digital and entrepreneurial competences of people working in culture and creative sector (CCS), and a manual that describes creation and integration of such rooms within learning settings.

The full title of the CO-ART project translated from English is “Challenge-based Online tools to develop entrepreneurial and digital competences among young ARTpreneurs”. During two years, the international team discussed the most successful ways and forms for the development of such educational tools for strengthening the creative industries and raising the competences of aspiring and working ARTepreneurs in the shadows of the consequences of the pandemic. It resulted in 24 online breakout rooms, as well as a manual on how to create and integrate them into the learning process.

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The project partners believe that young people working in the fields of creative industries and culture need such knowledge, skills and abilities that will allow them to fully evaluate the opportunities provided, think ethically and sustainably, know how to mobilize resources and work with finances, be able to deal with uncertainty and risks, know how to work in partnership with others, be able to collaborate in a digital environment and observe online etiquette, develop digital content independently and respect its copyright and licensing, data security and welfare principles. All of these competencies are being reinforced through activities of the CO-ART project.

ABOUT THE OUTCOMES

DOWNLOADDOWNLOAD (1)The concept of online breakout rooms is quite similar to the common form of entertainment – participants complete various tasks and challenges in order to get clues about the next tasks until they solve all the levels of the challenge and “break out” of the digital room. You can learn more about the concept in the prepared manual (available in six languages on project website)

On the other hand, it is possible to try out the breakout rooms themselves in six languages (English, Latvian, Greek, Polish, French and Spanish) on the project website www.co-art-hub.eu. After trying out the breakout rooms, the creators of those invite you to fill out the questionnaire (in English) – the lessons learned will help to improve and polish the prepared solutions.
Follow the progress of the project in CO-ART project homepage and LinkedIn page!
GUIDEBOOK Social business roadmap
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GUIDEBOOK
Social business roadmap

The Social Business Roadmap has the aim to support young people in creating a social enterprise in 10 simple steps. It is an entrepreneurial guide tool for helping young people to make their first step in the social business world, as it’s easy to get lost on the entrepreneurial route, thus this small guide could be used as a road map.

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This guide provides some information about the social business world, the opportunities and the next steps. The Social Business Roadmap, as a non-formal educational tool, contains the necessary information, helpful instructions, and available support that will support a particular action or process regarding self-employability in social entrepreneurship. Therefore, this tool will be the appropriate instrument for any young person who wants to acquire the necessary support and empowerment for planning, launching, managing, and growing a successful social enterprise.

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GUIDELINES Social impact communication in youth organisations and youth social enterprises
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GUIDELINES
Social impact communication in youth organisations and youth social enterprises

Within the project BALTIC: YOUTH: IMPACT, the Latvian Social Entrepreneurship Association together with the Baltic partners has developed Social Impact Communication Guidelines. The goal of social impact communication is to increase and scale the positive social and environmental impact. These guidelines aim to create support instruments to help employees or volunteers in youth organisations or social enterprises to communicate their social impact in an understandable, inexpensive way, thus supporting efforts towards quality and better work of youth organisations. The guidelines will help to understand, how to organise internal and external communication and how to choose the communication message.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF COMMUNICATING YOUR SOCIAL IMPACT?
Sometimes you may wonder whether the time dedicated to communicating your impact is worthwhile or maybe you have a
question, to whom you should communicate your impact. Or why do you need to invest resources to build this communication? The answer is – because the impact communication benefits an organisation in many ways.

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These guidelines will serve you as an inspiration on how to communicate the social impact of your organisation or project to both internal and external audiences. If you still have doubts after reading the guidelines or you think your organisation is too small and does not have enough resources to create your social impact communication strategy, do not be afraid to start small.

It’s a good idea to start with simple steps like preparing and compiling data. By taking small steps you can gradually grow bigger and achieve great things – the more you talk about your organisation, the greater the chances of receiving more support and expanding the team in the future. The key is not to be afraid and start doing it. And you can start by checking out the guidelines below!

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

eBOOK Envisioning the Future of Learning for Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
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eBOOK
Envisioning the Future of Learning for Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

For two years consortium of Erasmus+ VISION project have been working on useful outcomes, and the project concluded in the last December. Proudly they are presenting an outcome of the project – a book that has just been released for broader audiences. ‘Envisioning the Future of Learning for Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship will be available in e-Book format free of charge from March 7th, and in paperback format from March 21, 2022.

Download eBook here || Buy paperback version here

ABOUT THIS BOOK
Envisioning the Future of Learning for Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship outlines the work and findings of the Erasmus+ VISION research project. The book is focused on the increasing importance of immersive learning and includes the findings of more than 130 detailed interviews and 9 workshops.

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Education is changing and teachers and students around the world are reshaping it. This book is designed to help educators, policy makers and stakeholders from industry and society at large navigate the changing landscape of education for creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship (CIE). Built on insights from more than 250 experts, the book presents a learning landscape that captures today’s shifts within CIE education and proposes guidance and potential pathways for those involved in the field.

It shows that the landscape of education for CIE is influenced by:

  • Learning as an immersive experience driven by play and experimentation,
  • The rise in on the job education and learning by doing as part of life-long upskilling,
  • Teachers’ roles evolve to be coaches and mentors developing hard and soft skills,
  • Numerous images are included in the book using the technique of visual thinking, stimulating imagination, creativity and innovation.

If you are interested in finding out about the project research process and the findings’ report, visit the website of the project HERE.

Download eBook here || Buy paperback version here

ABOUT THE PROJECT

VISION was implemented by a consortium of 13 partner organizations from Europe and concluded in December 2021. Within this project, more than 120 international experts were asked to reflect on the future of CIE teaching and learning. Transversal skills and the Growth Mindset was the focus of discussions, considering CIE skills as keys to foster positive social impact. Take a look at the other outcomes to get to know the background and scope of the topic!

This publication has been prepared within SENBS project No. 2020- 1-EE01-KA204-077999. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

“Manual on social entrepreneurship”
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“Manual on social entrepreneurship”

This manual contains the results of the comparative study in Europe on success stories of Social Entreprises with a significant social impact on the territories in which they operate. It will also provide information about the methods of approach and teaching to young people, in particular disadvantaged young people, on how to start a startup, with a focus on social enterprise.

 

https://socialentrepreneur.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Manual_design_final.pdf

 

Digital Innovation Camp: Youth and Social Entrepreneurship
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Digital Innovation Camp: Youth and Social Entrepreneurship

International Digital Innovation Camp has been organized online from 15-17th of November 2021 for young people from Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, and Norway to design and validate social entrepreneurship ideas designed by youth for solving specific challenges – loneliness and social isolation of people. The event has been scheduled for three days to introduce participants to the challenge and the context of their work, initiate brainstorming and idea conceptualization in national groups, engage mentors to provide feedback, develop their own presentation and present the solutions developed by young people. The results were more than AMAZING! <3

So what exactly has happened?

Day 1 (16.11.2021)

The event has started with the short intro from the Digital Innovation Camp organizer, Tharald Lundvall from Junior Achievement Norway. An energizer activity was organized by Even Fjellestad from UiA CoLAB.

Mini-lecture was held by Chief architect, town planner, and co-housing idea enthusiast  Michael Fuller Gee. He has introduced young people to the problems different society groups face today and the ways in which mindful city planning might solve them. He has spoken about the problem of loneliness and the inability to connect socially for those, who live alone. These problem has been clearly showcased by the Covid-19 pandemics and the rising numbers of depressions and suicides detected. There are different reasons for the single-person household trend and each case is individual. However in the future when there are twice more seniors as we have now, the consequences might not be beneficial, especially for those being unable to move on a long-distance or receive healthcare or other services due to living in distant places and having no support around.

Therefore Michael Fuller Gee has introduced his concept of co-housing and its’ principle’s implementation in the city design as a solution to the emergent problem. Co-housing allows to build communities around the living spaces and combat the feeling of isolation and loneliness among very distinct social groups and even within them. This introduction helped Innovation Camp participants to become more aware of the relation between city planning and the emotional state of its inhabitants.

After the presentation,  participants were provided with information on the context of their work. Due to the Covid restrictions and inability to meet in Kristiansand, Norway (initially planned Innovation Camp destination), the video was compiled to show around the Kristiansand and the specific venue – the Kings Center in Kristiansand. The center is an old building being restored to transform it into a co-housing for the elderly, youth, and people with physical disabilities under the same roof. Kings Center has been introduced as an object and the basis for the projects developed by Innovation Camp participants.

Later participants were divided into national groups to work on one of the assignments proposed. They were supposed to design activities and services (e.g. care services, social activities, business activities) that make the co-housing centre an attractive place to live in for:

  1. elderly people,
  2. people with physical disabilities, or
  3. students

Also, participants were supposed to explain how can their planned solutions be implemented/organized and carried out jointly by the inhabitants.

In national teams, young people started designing their ideas and discussing the possibilities.

Day 2 (16.11.2021)

During Day 2, national teams have continued to work on their project ideas. Each team had a chance to present their draft ideas to the mentors and receive a feedback for improvements. Teams have discussed the variety of ideas with mentors from Norway, Denmark and Latvia, and chosen the ones with the highest potential. After consultancy with mentors and within the teams, participants were able to conceptualize the presentations of their developed solution.

Day 3 (17.11.2021)

At Day 3, all teams made their final touches to the presentations and presented their project ideas to the jury and Innovation Camp participants. The final presentations included one team from Latvia, one team from Lithuania, 2 teams from Poland, and 2 teams from Norway. Participants were assessed by the Jury based on the following evaluation criteria: Answering the assignment, Creativity, Feasibility, and Presentation quality.

On behalf of the INDIGISE project network, we applaud and congratulate all three winning teams of the Digital Innovation Camp – Team Poland (1st place), Team Lithuania and Team Latvia (shared 2nd place).

 

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So, what solutions have been developed to ensure the King’s Center co-housing concept succeeds in delivering an inclusive social environment and emotional wellbeing to its inhabitants – youth, people with physical disabilities and youth?

Six teams of young people from Lithuania, Poland, Norway and Latvia have proposed the solutions, that has the potential to improve seniors’, youth’s and disabled peoples’ physical activity and emotional state indoors and outdoors, pointing out the opportunities to place training stations and areas around the King’s center in Kristiansand. The team from Latvia has even introduced the concept of E-sports Academy for seniors, focusing on seniors-customized and ergonomic video gaming and quality leisure time together with young gamers in a cohousing. Other ideas have introduced different concepts of spending time in a community environment by crafting and doing arts together, preparing food and sharing cafe areas, designing common communication platforms and motivation systems of volunteer and other stakeholder engagement in community life. Community gardening has also been chosen by several teams as a great idea to be introduced in a King’s community center to combat isolation, loneliness and improve life quality.

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(pictures from the presentation of Innovation Camp participants – presented by the teams from Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Norway)

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The event has been developed under the INDIGISE project funded by the Erasmus+ programme. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

SE Impact Tool to assess impact measurement, planning, and implementation.
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SE Impact Tool to assess impact measurement, planning, and implementation.

SE Impact Tool

This tool is developed for helping social entrepreneurs and people working in the SE field to assess their perceptions of SE Impact measurement, planning, and implementation. Afterward, it helps to deeply understand the value and range of tools of the SE Impact, outlining their needs and steps for the progress in this field.

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in order to receive the final outputs of this tool on your e-mail, which will be generated based on your answers, please click the “Questionnaire” , and log in (register).

 

Find more about SE online toolbox where you can find also SE Canvas tool, SE Pestel tool, SE diagnostic tool and SE Financial modeling tool. Here

 

 

 

 

 

MIRO – where teams get works done
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MIRO – where teams get works done

The online collaborative whiteboard platform to bring teams together, anytime, anywhere.

For a while, we’ve been hearing that remote work and therefore remote jobs are the trend of the future. However, in 2020 there are enough people working across different offices, satellite hubs, coworking spaces, cafes, home offices, and backyard sheds on a given day that it’s clear: “remote work” describes the way so many of us are already working every day.

Even if you’re physically located in the same office, you may send your coworker an instant message instead of walking over to their desk. Update a project’s status in a spreadsheet. Give feedback in a comment. Put your ideas on a virtual sticky note. You’re practicing “remote collaboration.”

Despite this growing trend, many still view being part of a successful remote or distribute teams as having a Herculean challenge. At Miro, we disagree. We believe employees don’t need to be in the same location to produce their best work together, and we live our truth every day with our own internationally distributed teams. Like it or not, virtual work is here to stay—which is why we’re sharing our secret sauce so you can help your remote teams thrive, just like ours.

Mori information is available HERE.

 

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.