Social Innovation has been increasingly perceived as the answer to the rising number of European societal challenges. While the European authorities, leading academics, policy experts, business people and activists agree that social innovation is the key to better future for Europe and the world, it is extremely difficult for professionals to obtain high quality training on what social innovation actually offers and, more importantly, how it can be done in practice.

We aim to change this situation in Europe and beyond. SOCIA brings together five experienced partners from Luxembourg, Greece, Poland, Slovenia and Spain to develop and test the Social Innovation Academy concept.

The Academy will be the first European, fully online management training programme focusing exclusively on social innovation.

It will target the managers of companies, NGOs/civil society organisations and intermediaries (hubs, incubators, labs etc.) as well as (aspiring) social entrepreneurs willing to learn how to set up and run social innovation initiatives to solve the most pressing societal challenges of our times.

By training social innovators of the future, the Academy’s impact will reach the business, policy and administration audiences as a whole.