With our first webinar in a series of three, we want to take a closer look at the potentials of social innovative projects for the development of Central Europe’s border regions and beyond.

Central Europe’s border regions are particularly burdened by historical, language and cultural barriers for local transborder cooperation. While encompassing a vast area, these mostly rural and often sparsely populated regions along nation state borders face particular social and economical challenges and often lack behind more centred regions.

Under the assumption that social innovative initiatives, such as social enterprises, are prone to mitigate and overcome these barriers, this webinar aims at highlighting promising approaches that support the local development in the regions concerned.

Agenda:

• 03.00PM Introduction & words of welcome By Moritz Blanke of Social Impact

• 03.10PM “Social entrepreneurship as a form of cross-border cooperation in EU border regions” By PhD(c) Hans Wevers of the Open University of the Netherlands

• 03.25PM “Support to economic diversification of rural cross-border areas in Southeast Europe” By Benjamin Mohr of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für international Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)

• 03.40PM "Creating cross-border cooperation along the Apple Fruit Road Svečina. Learnings from the Slovenian-Austrian border" By Janja Viher of the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Maribor

• 03.55PM Discussion / Breakout session

• 04.25PM Closing

+++ the webinar will be held in english language only +++

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About CERUSI's Webinar Series “The borders of Rural Social Innovation”

In its efforts of reaching out to rural change-makers in Central Europe the CERUSI Partnership will set up a series of three webinars (online courses) dedicated to the topic of the “Borders of Rural Social Innovation”.

In its two-year-long implementation cycle, the CERUSI-Project aims at both the transfer of skills as well as the improvement of competences of rural social entrepreneurs and actors of the regional innovation ecosystem alike. By the means of the upcoming webinar series, the partnership will open the discussion to three thematic fields that we deem to be of overarching importance for the future integration of social innovations as a sustainable strategy for rural development.

By building on the “border” metaphor the webinars build on a critical trajectory that shapes the implementation of social innovation in rural regions in various aspects (“triple-border-trajectory”): for one, their relative marginalisation through administrative/natural borders and tendencies of reinforcement of these (e.g. proliferated through the Covid19 crises), further their organisational thinness as regards the innovation ecosystem and finally their manifold (inter)dependencies on urban areas.

Therefore, during the exchange with experts and practitioners we seek to highlight potential leverage points for a more nuanced and positive future development in the frame of this trajectory that highlights good pathways and best practices in the fields of a) the development of and cooperation across rural border regions, b) the fostering of rural social innovations through public-private-partnerships and c) the potentials of social innovation for the integration of rural and urban regions in the development of a European circular economy.

Structure of webinars-series:

1st Webinar: “Social Innovation for the integration of Central Europe’s rural border regions” (Social Impact) (May 26th,15.00-16.30)

2nd Webinar: “Fostering of rural social innovations through public-public-partnerships” (Democenter) (Date tbc)

3rd Webinar: “The potentials of social innovation for the integration of rural and urban regions in the development of European circular economy” (ZSI) (Date tbc)

About the INTERREG-CE CERUSI-project: https://www.interreg-central.eu/Content.Node/CERUSI.html