European Community of Practice

Sharing experiences and knowledge between people in different countries taking part in the Innovation & Mainstreaming Community of Practice (CoP)  has helped to identify management practices in several ESF programmes that have clearly had a positive impact on quality and innovation in the projects and action that they support.

In essence three factors have made social innovation possible in EQUAL:

• a model that followed the innovation and mainstreaming cycle: needs diagnosis, testing, validation and recognition of the quality of results, and their transfer or dissemination to other contexts, involving rebuilding or adaptation;
• key principles underlying all interventions: innovation, partnership, empowerment and participation of target groups, gender equality, transnational cooperation, involvement of employers, and mainstreaming of best practice;
• Thematic Networks, where partnerships were able to share ideas and experiences in communities of practice, in an environment of trust and openness that facilitated reflection and analysis, validation of products, and preparations for products’ mainstreaming.

EQUAL experiences have shown that social innovation does not happen by chance.

Programme Managers have a key role on promoting regulations, mechanisms, tools and the competencies needed to facilitate innovation.

A culture and context conducive to sharing and learning among the different actors involved, as well as conditions that include specific, sufficient and flexible financial support, are all conditions that need to be available before social innovation can be driven forward, implemented and disseminated.

The recommendations put forward follow the key stages of the innovation and mainstreaming cycle.  Many contain references to practices, mechanisms and tools that may be consulted in Resources.

The full text of lessons learned and recommendations (in Portuguese and English) are attached.