We left you in our previous blog post with the view of having an inward look and a clear assessment of the external environment to understand the organisational development of a SESO. Understanding and assessing both spheres is the starting point to carve a pathway for SESOs to further mature as an organisation or influence the maturity of the ecosystem.
Next to a learning environment within a SESO being critical for self-improvement, it is also of importance to have a learning environment with and amongst different actors of the Social Economic/Social Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (SEE).
During our Expert Group sessions we zoomed in on the different perspectives from actors within the SEE and received their feedback on the framework.
Government agencies are important actors within the SEE as they institutionalise the system from which is operated. Together with social enterprises and private firms they address system failures that created a social problem. In the Expert Group we have the European Commission providing a policy perspective on the framework. The feedback received indicated that the framework would be a helpful tool to paint a picture of the needs and challenges of SESOs and where help would be helpful/impactful.
Next to government agencies there are also a couple of financiers in the Expert Group. Their aim is to have an improved understanding of what the strengths and challenges are for SESOs. This will help them to identify areas where interventions within the SEE can have the most significant impact.
Education is provided by universities who also dissemination research information to inform actors. Within the Expert Group we have a handful of universities reflecting on the work done so far. Understanding how the framework is placed within the work of academics is of importance to leverage on the insights produced by the framework. Disseminating a common voice and promoting the framework in research enables a higher level of understanding and credibility. The challenge of the framework is creating a practical translation from academic work to operationalising the framework in such a way that it is understandable and user-friendly for SESOs of different maturity levels.
Even though mainstream organisations are not part of the Expert Group, they were subject of discussion. Promoting collaboration and communication between different actors and enabling more adaptability is one of the aims of the framework which includes mainstream organisations. The framework could function as a tool to help SESOs orientate and understand which different actors operate in other bubbles and encourage different actors to think beyond their own bubble. We left the discussion with the question, how can we activate everyone that is of relevance?
Our next step is to validate the factors of the framework and doing a deep dive in the technical and operational part of the framework with a group of SESOs, research experts and innovation experts. This is done through our Learning Lab which you can read more about in our upcoming blogpost.
