Introduction:
The overall objective of the Social SEED project is the design and validation of a new social incubator for people at risk of social and economic exclusion. In order to achieve its goals, the strategic partnership will carry out different phases, also called Intellectual Outputs. Throughout the project, the strategic partnership will design a methodology guide, create and adapt the course contents to the identified needs, validate the developed concepts throughout a pilot incubator and implement a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to present the SOCIAL SEED methodology, course and reports.
Following the previous structure and with the aim of fulfil the requirements established in the project proposal, this document corresponds to the outcomes and finding of Intellectual Output 1, the design of a methodological incubation guide for groups at risk of social exclusion. In this methodological guide, the strategic partnership has collected and analyzed:
- The best practices at European level of the existing incubators, social incubators and more specifically social incubators which collaborate with people at risk of social and economic exclusion. The processes and steps of each of the selected incubators have been studied, considering all its phases (training, mentoring, consulting, etc.), its timing (hours/week), location, number of entrepreneurs by program, who owns the initial idea of the business, the number of entrepreneurs per mentor and the support given by companies and administration.
- The relationship between members of the incubators, including NGOs, companies, entrepreneurs and professionals. A documentary search was carried out to identify the incubators that contain success stories in their management and best examples have been extracted.
- The training and education tools need to implement a social incubator. Interviews with experts and professionals have shown both similarities and differences in educational practices of social incubators in partner countries of the project.
- The current public policies in the countries belonging to the strategic partnership. The analysis aims to provide an insight and overview of the support measures of municipalities to promote self-employment people at risk of social and economic exclusion. The focus is especially on municipal (public) incubators and their instruments/concepts to support entrepreneurial thinking and behavior in the region.
- The capacities and limitation of people at risk of social exclusion who have the intention to undertake their own business.