SEfficiency

This is a 2 years Joint project proposal between Belgium, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Uganda. It intends to create Social Entrepreneurship (SE) Offices at partner universities. By doing so, we want to increase the efficiency of social entrepreneurs in the aforementioned partner countries. Supporting SEs is a noble cause, as they typically aim at resolving the most challenging sustainability issues, which were not resolved by the government, private or public organizations. At the same time, social entrepreneurs are less focused on the business part of their initiatives. They often lack resources, among which: financial resources, human resources, and specialized knowledge in various domains. Moreover, the initiatives of SEs often lack visibility. While having a noble aim at resolving important sustainability challenges for our societies, unfortunately, SEs are not efficient in doing so. Universities have a central role to play in the support of SEs. For this support, universities need to only use existing (i) expertise of their staff and students, (ii) university assets, and (iii) local, national and international networks. Through the exchange of best practices, this project will provide local partner universities with knowledge on how to support social entrepreneurs, and how to structurally embed the support of SEs in the structure of their universities. SE offices at universities are meant to coordinate existing initiatives and strengthen (internal and external) networks in support of SEs. Through the activities proposed on this project, we aim at developing a solid network of partnerships at local, national and international level. Through this network, we aim to foster support for social entrepreneurs and improve their efficiency. At the same time, this project will strengthen the visibility of social entrepreneurs among their local communities and internationally. Project