Benchmarking the socio-economic performance of the EU social economy : improving the socio-economic knowledge of the proximity and social economy ecosystem : executive summary

This report summarises findings of the project 'Benchmarking the socio-economic performance of the EU social economy', (Call for tenders EISMEA/2022/OP/00159 Lot 1). This study assesses the socioeconomic weight of the 'Proximity and Social Economy' ecosystem and its contribution to a sustainable, innovative and resilient economy and society. The European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises EURICSE (consortium leader), CIRIEC International and Spatial Foresight have pursued two interconnected aims: to represent the social economy of today based on current data as well as to identify methodological and operational tools to improve this representation. For this project, the social economy is defined by the 2021 European Commission Social Economy Action Plan (SEAP). The plan covers four types of entities, or 'families', including entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial initiatives as well as organisations promoting the interests of their members and organisations pursuing objectives of general interest, namely: cooperatives, mutual benefit societies, associations (including charities), foundations, plus social enterprises, as a recent, crosscutting dynamic within the social economy. There are social economy organisations in all European (EU) countries, though some operate outside the radar. What changes across EU Member States is how much such entities are acknowledged by policymakers, the general public and grassroots organisations and recognise themselves as part of the social economy. Factors explaining the limited visibility of the social economy and underestimates of its contribution include a poor understanding of the diverse roles played by the organisations and the lack of high quality, comparable data and statistical analyses. Currently, only a few Member States have national statistics specifically measuring the social economy, including different types of social economy organisations, employment, the number of volunteers and the value added.