Starting from April 2021, the European Union’s European Cluster Platform, an EU hub dedicated to industrial clusters comprising more than 1000 partners and aimed at strengthening the European economic system through collaboration, has also included social economy clusters among its members. Torino Social Impact’s candidacy is one of the first to be approved, and so the Turin platform with its more than 100 partners becomes part of the European coordination.

For decades, the theme of technological and industrial clusters at the European level has been considered strategic for competitiveness and, borrowing this approach, in 2019 the European Commission has launched in-depth work on the role of clusters and other forms of territorial cooperation for the social economy, counting on introducing them into funding measures on an equal footing with other clusters. Hence the dedicated section of the European Cluster Platform, confirming the Commission’s plan to include the proximity and social economy among the Industrial Ecosystems for the Recovery.

In the dedicated section of the European Cluster Platform, the social economy is described as a significant portion of Europe’s economy that provides benefits for people other than investors and owners. In the new section, the social economy clusters or “Cluster of social and ecological innovation” are “Groups of social economy enterprises and other related supporting and economic actors that cooperate in a particular location to increase their joint social and ecologic impact by enhancing their cooperation, pooling resources and innovation capacity.“

Many of them are organised in a quadruple or quintuple model, meaning bringing together business (social economy and regular business), civil society, research and government. Moreover, they are usually cross-sectoral and they have usually other drivers than just improving the sectoral competitiveness.

A new chance for Torino Social Impact to get European visibility.