European Community of Practice

People involved in social intervention projects, especially social innovation projects, had reasons to feel in good spirits as they left the 1st Social Innovation International Congress, held on 29 and 30 May at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon...

We are concerned about social innovation, because – looking around Europe -  we see that our employment, training and education systems do not answer to the needs of large groups of our populations, specially disadvantage groups. So, we need to find new ways of doing things.

Social innovation is about change. Change in the ways we deliver solutions to the social problems we are facing. Social innovation is also target in disadvantage groups and their integration into the labour market. Social innovation is about combat discrimination in the labour market.

On the 15th and 16th of October 2007, an international Conference on e-learning will take place in Lisbon, under the initiatives of  the Portuguese Presidency of the EU. In the context of that Conference, we are organising a special session with Etienne Wenger on the 16th to discuss Communities of Practice. Etienne will be available to provide the European EQUAL CoP's with his advice. We expect that all CoP's will welcome this opportunity to discuss their problems and interact between them and with Etienne.