Sinnergiak Social Innovation joined the European School of Social Innovation project during the annual meeting held by this organisation on the 12th of July in Vienna. ESSI is a project that brings together organisations and networks already working in the field of social innovation to disseminate and carefully examine the most important scientific issues and the professional practices and skills in this area.
The European School of Social Innovation (ESSI) was launched a year ago by the ZSI (Zentrum für Soziale Innovation of Vienna) and the Social Research Centre of the University of Technology of Dortmund (Germany). Under the ESSI umbrella organisation, the entities that are part of this initiative carry out network activities and projects in a way that is more visible and interconnected. This can be seen from the seminars, workshops and conferences that have been held to date, such as the International Conference on Social Innovation that was held in Vienna 2011, and the cooperation between educational organisations to study the possibility of coordinating future post-graduate programmes and qualifications in the field of social innovation. ESSI’s approach is based on a combination of training and research through collaborative frameworks that reduce the gaps and distances present in international and cross-disciplinary cooperation, thus making it possible to apply new approaches to research and practices within the field of social innovation.