The Project

The project “For a Better Tomorrow: Social Enterprises on the Move” (FAB-MOVE) is funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE). It brings together researchers and practitioners in order to explore the question of how social enterprises can grow and flourish. These objectives will be achieved through a carefully crafted network of 28 academic and non-academic partner organizations co-operating worldwide. At the heart of the project lies the idea to promote international and inter-sector collaboration through research and innovation staff exchanges, and sharing of knowledge and ideas from research to the market. International and intersectoral secondments (1-12 months) of staff members from all partner organizations build the foundation for comparative research on social enterprises, their environments, innovations and challenges in different contexts.

Currently there is a lack of knowledge about the influence of different social and economic environments on social enterprises. Local eco-systems and traditions have a decisive impact on the wellbeing, growth and potentials for scaling-up of social enterprises. FAB-MOVE focuses on the embeddedness of social enterprises and its impact on their evolution. It identifies crucial success factors for a sustainable development of these new and innovative organizations in an internationally comparative perspective. Thoroughly analyzed case studies serve as best practices by highlighting how social enterprises overcome crucial problems and manage to grow in different social areas and various regions around the world. In particular, the cases will shed light on how managers of social enterprises cooperate with stakeholders and how their environment composed of promoting actors and existing (political) structures meet their needs in order to improve social cohesion all over Europe.
Moreover, managers and practitioners of social enterprises often lack an easy access to the frontiers of science. FAB-MOVE will significantly improve the transfer of knowledge between academics and non-academics and thus increase the practical applicability of research findings. For an enduring sustainable impact, the central results of FAB-MOVE will be published in the form of a teaching tool to educate (future) managers of social enterprises - on how to set up their enterprise in a specific environment, how to combine business with a social goal, and how to develop strategies for growth and scaling-up.

Objectives

FAB-MOVE aims at:

• bridging the gap between academic and non-academic stakeholders from a range of different national backgrounds and building up a sustainable network between them,
• thereby enhancing the knowledge about social enterprises, their contextual embeddedness and factors for their success in comparative perspective,
• increasing the problem-solving capacity of social enterprises and societies at-large, as well as
• involving a broad range of stakeholders through dissemination activities and thus spreading knowledge about social enterprises in different settings.