The project, in cooperation with design thinking experts, social entrepreneurs and business advisers, co-designs, co-develops and co-implements a design thinking-based training material in the form of a “DT Field Guide for Social Enterprises", providing the necessary knowledge and tools to support and motivate design thinking within social enterprises in order for them to grow, scale–up and prosper. The Field Guide acts as a toolkit for social entrepreneurs that wish to act as intrapreneurs and design thinking facilitators as well as for design thinking experts and practitioners, VET trainers and social business advisers to motivate innovation and design thinking to social enterprises, expanding and better targeting their existing services. 

Based on the 3 core Design Thinking consecutive phases, the project results are expected as follows:

INSPIRATION: Inspiration Synthesis Report and Methodological Framework of the Design Thinking (DT) Field Guide for Social Enterprises
During this phase, the synthesis report is developed to present needs, methods, tools, best practices and the methodological framework for the elaboration of the DT Field Guide under the subsequent ideation phase.

To access the final report in English click here. For executive summaries in Finnish (Tiivistelmä), Greek (Σύνοψη), Spanish (Resumen ejecutivo).

IDEATION: Development of the Design Thinking Field Guide for Social Enterprises Prototype STAY TUNED!
This is the milestone phase of the project, developing the actual learning and training course, the DT Field Guide, based on the methodological framework developed and the findings identified under the preceding inspiration phase.

IMPLEMENTATION: Development of the Online Learning & Training Platform and Validation STAY TUNED! 
During this phase, the training course conceptualised and developed under the ideation phase is brought to life and market through the organisation of pilot training workshops for target learners in partner countries, as well as the development of the Social UP online training and learning platform. The pilot DT workshops will address the project target groups (more under ABOUT) and are expected to be held in the beginning of 2018. If you are interested to participate, register to receive our news and contact us. 

Click here to enter the SocialUP online platform and the DT Guide for social enterprises

The DT Field Guide for social enterprise has been piloted in 5 workshops in the UK, Finland, Greece, and Spain. Click here to download the workshops report

MULTIPLIER EVENTS

The SocialUP multiplier events have been carried out in the UΚ, Finland, Greece and Spain. The SocialUP outputs, and especially the online DT field guide for social enterprises, have been showcased to a mixed audience of approximately 170 participants in all countries. The participants consisted of social entrepreneurs (active and prospect), social entrpreneurship consultants, NGO representatives, desing thinking experts, HEI graduates in respective fields, etc. The SocialUP intervention for effective and sustainable social enterprises has been highly appreciated, while the provided design thinking tools and methodology have been welcomed as an innovative way to set up and effectively run a social enterprise towards tackling complex social challenges.

Events are planned to be held by the project partners close to the end of the project (Summer 2018) in the UK, Greece, Finland and Spain to present the project results, inform and involve interested stakeholders, increasing project visibility and sustainability. STAY TUNED!