Barcelona, Spain , 28 of May 2025 – The Open Business for Community Development (OBCD) project, implemented from 2022 through 2025 and co-funded by the EU’s Erasmus+ Programme, seeks to foster innovation in education, alleviate skills gaps in the European labour market, and empower social enterprises.
Drawing on research conducted across Finland, Greece, Italy, and Spain, OBCD proposes a new competency framework for social entrepreneurship – SEntreComp – which builds on the existing EntreComp model and introduces new competencies specific to social enterprises. Building on this new framework, the project also developed two modular training curricula to address critical skills gaps for social enterprises: one targeting social enterprise Administrative Professionals (EQF5 - higher education) and another for Managers and Developers of social enterprises (EQF6 - vocational education). The curricula are aligned with the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and ESCO (European Skills, Competences, Qualifications, and Occupations) to ensure international recognition and the mobility of qualifications across member states. In line with the project’s principles of openness and collaboration, the curricula are freely accessible through an online MOOC.
In addition, the OBCD project has focused on building vibrant social entrepreneurship ecosystems to collaborate in local development, including through the establishment of Knowledge Triangles connecting the business, higher education, and vocational training sectors, and by developing a prototype for a local hub that can serve as an incubator for social enterprises. By integrating an open business approach, these ecosystems aim to facilitate collaboration, innovation, and co-creation among social enterprises and diverse stakeholders from the private, public, and education sectors. These ecosystems, and the local hub, are supported in this endeavour by the OBCD’s openly accessible interactive online platform, which enables stakeholders to work together, share knowledge, and collectively support the growth of social enterprises.
A Call to Action: The OBCD project has created valuable resources, recently showcased at an international academic conference, to support the growth and sustainability of social enterprises in Europe. Adoption of OBCD’s competency framework and training curricula, support for the further development of social enterprise ecosystems and the establishment of local hubs, and engagement with the resources and opportunities offered by the project’s interactive online platform can generate significant momentum in support of social enterprises. These actions will help to ensure that social enterprises, and the professionals that work in such organisations, are adequately equipped with the tools and resources they need to tackle society’s most pressing challenges, create long-lasting social impact, and contribute to the EU’s goals of sustainability, social inclusion, and economic growth.
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