Social Innovation Fair celebrates GCU's international efforts changing lives
Glasgow Caledonian University will be hosting a two-day Social Innovation Fair next week (May 18-19) to showcase our collaborative projects helping to change lives locally, nationally and internationally.
The University’s Research Innovation Office (RIO) will bring together social innovation partners from across Scotland and beyond to highlight initiatives in low-income countries like Vietnam and Sub Saharan Africa.
Key partnership projects being led by the RIO team include SEVERE, Atlantic Social Lab, Social Innovation Connect UK, Supporting Youth Social Entrepreneurship in Sub Saharan Africa, and SILKEN Vietnam.
Some of the partners and stakeholders represented at the Fair come from business, government, universities and social enterprise in Spain, Malaysia, Croatia, Portugal, Ireland and South Africa.
There will also be representatives from Scotland’s Centre for Innovation The Melting Pot, Barclays Eagle Labs which boosts small and scaling tech businesses, and CodeYourFuture, a non-profit organisation that helps refugees and those on low-income start great careers in tech, among others.
Come along and find out more about the SEVERE (Virtual Environments and Remote Entrepreneurship) project, and how it has developed a transnational programme for nurturing young innovators, giving them skills to encourage active citizenship and social entrepreneurship.
Mark Majewsky Anderson, Director of Research and Innovation at Glasgow Caledonian, said: “We are passionate about how universities can collaborate and support their communities across frontiers, through co-creativity, social innovation, and global citizenship.
“We are encouraging all staff, students and the public to come along and find out more about our exciting social innovation projects and how we are helping social innovators of the future improve lives in their communities.”
Funded by the European Commission Erasmus+ programme, the SEVERE project was launched in direct response to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and it has developed through partnership working with other universities and higher education institutions in Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Scotland.
With the help of the partners, students have been devising social innovation projects aimed at specific societal challenges and developing their initial ideas into practical, sustainable projects, culminating in a Pitching Event to international impact investors in Florence last year.
SEVERE offers students a training programme handbook, as well as a virtual incubation and micro-internships platform that will help prepare students.
The Atlantic Social Lab helps develop and promote social innovation approaches and methods to help communities, third sector, public sector and social enterprises in the Atlantic Area deal with growing social issues and challenges.
Find out how the RIO team is helping to improve lives, working with key partners from across Europe on the project, led by Avilés City Council in Spain, and funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), through the INTERREG Cooperation Program Atlantic Area.
Social Innovation Connect (the UK’s SI Competence Centre):Social Innovation Connect (SI Connect) is a new initiative, was launched by RIO and aims to create a better, more connected UK social innovation ecosystem across the regions, with stronger transnational ties to Europe and beyond.
Social Innovation Linkages for Knowledge Exchange Network – Vietnam (SILKEN-VIETNAM) is supporting six Vietnamese universities set up social innovation support units to help students make a difference in their communities with social enterprises.
Join the free event at Glasgow Caledonian’s Sir Alex Ferguson Library - Social Innovation Fair Tickets, Thu, May 18, 2023 at 9:00 AM | Eventbrite.
Pictures - the first shows graduates of our SYSE project – Supporting Youth Social Entrepreneurship in South Africa and Ghana to “inspire youth confidence, improve employability prospects and enhance social entrepreneurship orientation”.
The second is a visit to a bamboo cooperative in Vietnam, which is working in partnership with Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry as part of our SILKEN project.