Blue Social Growth Entrepreneurship Erasmus Project

Project Title

Blue Social Growth Entrepreneurship

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Integration of refugees; Economic and financial affairs (incl. funding issues); Social entrepreneurship / social innovation

Project Summary

Blue Social Growth’ was an experimental pedagogical plan for the training of the populations living in small islands to address their pressing issues- like the recent immigration and refugees’ crisis- through developing blue growth economy social enterprises from the merge of the land with the sea.
The project involved prospective social entrepreneurs with a migrant and refugee background. The target group addressed promoted a cross-disciplinary approach in the social entrepreneurship sector and incorporated collaborative and co-creation approaches by bringing together stakeholders from different groups of the Blue Growth sector, including European networks on tourism, fishery and small islands, blue growth and social entrepreneurship incubators, blue growth social entrepreneurs ‘start-uppers’, ship-owners, academics and policy makers, non-profits and non-governmental organizations that address issues related to the sea and refugee crisis, digital entrepreneurs, trainers and educators, and collaborative ventures between marginalized groups and bottom of the pyramid populations.

The objective of the training programme was twofold on one hand co-sharing and co-creation through transformational engagement of bottom of the pyramid-BoP populations as value creation for survival and growth. On the other hand through learning from new approaches of action learning, inductive approaches and design thinking methodologies to develop the skills needed for social innovation and social collaborative entrepreneurship such as questioning, challenging, dreaming, imagining, experimenting, learning, problem solving, critical thinking.

The partnership consisted of 5 partners from 4 European countries capturing the stakeholder themselves, that is the small islands of Europe, in an intercultural approach trying to include all major regions in need from the North to the South and from the East to the West. The project included the regions where refugee and immigration crisis are found, including Greek Small islands, Sardinia Island in Italy, the Islands and Coastal region of Spain, The Small Islands of Scotland. All partners are strategically situated in the areas of supporting small islands populations, development of entrepreneurship, in supporting the livelihoods of small islands inhabitants.

The methodology of the project was adapted to meet the geographical isolation characteristics and the seasonality of small islands life. Therefore the methodology was mainly e-based through live streaming of many of the activities to reach as more participants as possible. Partners firstly conducted an exploratory mixed methods research based on which the content of the e-learning programme were designed, then Handbook and e-modules were developed and integrated in the e-learning platform.
The pilot learning programme began after a pre-testing by the partners and by a small sample of the target population. The recruiting of the pilot took place during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions which constitued a criticality for all partners, however the total envisaged number of testers was reached.

The expected impact of the programme and its benefits were: the elaboration of business plans related to the creation of social enterprises to tackle the pressing issues of European small islands societies through transformational social impact and social value creation, like in the areas of refugees’ and migrants integration. Through the development of collaborative inclusive social enterprise ventures that result from the interaction among the sea and the earth. The outcomes of the programme offered experimental information for research and executive education and contributed to the development of the EU as an advanced inclusive responsible knowledge-based society.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 230971 Eur

Project Coordinator

Comune di Olbia & Country: IT

Project Partners

• The Nest Social Cooperative Enterprise
• EOLAS S.L.
• ELLINIKO DIKTIO MIKRON NISION
• Scottish Islands Federation