The handbook serves as a reference book for both students enrolled on the programme, as well as social innovators in general. It consists of a characterisation of the social needs and challenges within the participating communities, especially in the wake of the coronavirus and a review of the latest technologies and their applications for remote working, especially for socially innovative collaboration.
This platform hosts social innovation projects – virtual social enterprises (VSEs), and combines a repository of online tools, a networking platform, and project management facility. It is specially designed to help students from different countries work on collaborative social innovation projects and include a number of resources for remote working, virtual mobility, webinars, virtual cafes, podcasts etc. There is also a space for mentoring of the transnational projects developed.
This included several steps such as: a preparation programme delivered at a local level; a Summer School for establishing collaborative projects among students from six different countries and then a Winter School to give teams the opportunity to showcase their progress and initial activities. After one year, through a pitching bootcamp the project teams harnessed their presentation skills and showcased their projects to external stakeholders. The students then continued to develop their projects remotely during the final year of the project.
Designed as a promotional tool and as a handbook for other institutions wishing to carry out similar initiatives. It consists of: a blueprint of the programme including access to the virtual incubation space; case studies of the student projects and chapters by partners and stakeholders, reflecting on the remote working within the social innovation context.
This was developed to increase the availability and visibility of internship opportunities within the Social Innovation / Social Enterprise sector improving employability among young people interested in SI whilst supporting social enterprises to recruit for small scale projects.