NEOMA BS has joined the European Union’s flagship research-funding programme.
SIMPACT (Boosting the Impact of Social Innovation in Europe through Economic Underpinnings) aims to improve understanding of the economic foundations of social innovation, focussing on the integration of vulnerable groups within society.
This project is funded as part of FP7 (7th Framework programme for research and development).

On 27-29 January, Sharam Alijani, Svetlana Serdukov, Mélissa Boudes and Anna Goychman, from NEOMA Business School (Reims campus) attended the project’s kick-off meeting, which took place in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, with over thirty representatives of the consortium’s different partners.  

Coordinated by a German Research Centre, IAT (Institut Arbeit und Technik) attached to the University of Gelsenkirchen, SIMPACT aims over the next three years to develop new concepts, models and actionable instruments for political decision makers, the leaders of innovative projects, investors and also representatives of civil society.
 
The project will study at European level cases of social innovation, both successful and unsuccessful, in order to highlight the facilitating features and obstacles.  It will establish indicators, and a forward-looking debate.  The research methodology will use both participative co-construction with all the stakeholders, and modelling, to forecast the behaviour of agents and the implementation of different scenarios.
 
Of a budget of €3 million (overall cost of the project), € 2.5 million will be funded by Europe. The overall budget planned for NEOMA BS is €230 000, including €183 500 of European funding and €49 000 additional funds from the Champagne-Ardenne regional council.

At NEOMA the project will be managed by the NEOMA BS/URCA Chair in Social and Solidarity-Based Economy, and will have a dedicated project team made up of NEOMA BS professors Svetlana Serdukov, Sharam Alijani, Diana Mangalagiu and Jane Mackinnon, together with Mélissa Boudes and Laetitia Lethielleux from the Social Economy Chair.

The academic contributions of NEOMA BS will deal with the following topics:

• Definition of the conceptual framework.
• Definition of the analytical framework, meta-analysis of existing case studies, data collection for new cases and biographies: NEOMA BS will lead this “work package.”
• Development of recommendations and public policy tools.

The project partners:
 

• Coordinator: Westphalian University, Institute for Work and Technology - (Germany)
• Technical University of Dortmund, Centre for Social Research (Germany)
• University of the Basque Country, SINNERGIAK Social Innovation Centre (Spain)
• University of Economics and Management Prague, Centre for Innovation Studies (Czech Republic)
• Netherlands Organisation of Applied Scientific Research TNO (Netherlands)
• University of Maastricht, Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (Netherlands)
• Politecnico di Milano, Industrial Design, Arts, Communication and Fashion (Italy)
• NEOMA Business School (France)
• University of Bath (United Kingdom)
• Centre for European Policy Studies (Belgium)
• Nordic Centre for Spatial Development (Sweden)

 
The consortium’s next meeting will be held in Reims, at NEOMA BS, in late August 2014.

Find out more about the project: www.simpact-project.eu (site currently under construction)

If you have any questions: anna.goychman@neoma-bs.fr