European Community of Practice

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.

Todays Workshop at The European Week of Regions and Cities is an opportunity to explain further the concepts of innovation and mainstreaming developed through EQUAL into the new ESF Programmes.

Of course all of the EQUAL Themes in one way or another have been incorporated in the new ESF Programmes and we in Northern Ireland believe this will provide an excellent platform for future Innovation and Mainstreaming.