University of Latvia participates at the Interreg Europe project "BRESE" supporting social enterprises in European regions

The project, in which the University of Latvia has taken over the role of advisory partner since 1 August 2019, aims to dismantle barriers for social enterprises and improve regional funding instruments. The project aims at comparing the existing political framework conditions and funding instruments in different European regions will be compared, as well as to exchange best practices. The Consortium partners are representing the Euregio Rhine-Waal, HAMAG-BICRO (Croatia), the Ministry for Environmental Protection and Regional Development of the Republic of Latvia, the Slovak Business Agency, Rzeszow Regional Development Agency (Poland) and the University of Latvia.

Strengthen social enterprises in European regions and raise awareness of the potential of these enterprises.

Social enterprises combine entrepreneurial activities with achieving positive social or environmental impacts; profits are reinvested in order to achieve these goals. They represent a new type of enterprises and have proven their ability to contribute to inclusive growth and meeting social challenges. Already today, social enterprises account for 10% of the European economy and one in four newly created enterprises in the European Union is a social enterprise. However, social enterprises often face regulatory barriers, difficulties with access to adequate financing and a lack of awareness of their potential. Since there is no universal, uniform definition of the term "social enterprise", have to compete with traditional enterprises. The BRESE project aims to dismantle these barriers for social enterprises, to raise awareness of their social and environmental potential and to optimise the existing framework conditions and funding programmes for social enterprises by comparing the instruments and initiatives of different European border regions with each other. In doing so, the project will also identify best practices and their potential for transfer.

At the end of the BRESE project, five regional action plans with concrete measures and recommendations on how to improve regional policy instruments with regards to social enterprises will be developed and implemented in the second project phase. The results of the project will be disseminated at European level and will provide input for other European regions on how regional funding instruments could be better adapted to the needs of social enterprises.

If you need any further information, please, visit the project website: https://www.interregeurope.eu/brese/ or contact the University of Latvia Project Manager Dr. Zane Zeibote (zane.zeibote@lu.lv, +371 29417214).