Lithuanian consortium partner held first Strategy Lab

The RESIST project partner from Lithuania, the Lithuanian Innovation Centre, held the first Strategy Lab on 24 September 2024 in Vilnius. The Strategy Lab served as a platform for exchange to jointly explore how to strengthen social innovation and social entrepreneurship in Lithuania.

The Strategy Lab brought together 22 stakeholders across sectors: parliamentarians, social entrepreneurs and social business representatives and other NGOs interested in enhancing social innovation and social entrepreneurship. During the forum, it became clear that Lithuania’s social enterprise ecosystem is still developing but has strong potential. The lab participants were unified in their understanding, that for better cooperation, it would be important to:

• actively collaborate between government, NGOs, and international bodies, supported by clear legal frameworks and better financing access for social enterprises.
• Lithuania must enable social enterprises to absorb financial and non-financial resources through a coordinated approach with social business associations, public authorities, and financial institutions.

• Drawing from models from other countries from the Baltic Sea Region, such as the German model, would enable Lithuania to progress and foster cooperation between social and tech-driven enterprises to enhance the SI/SE ecosystem.

Special focus for enhancing the SI/SE ecosystem

During the discussions the participants highlighted three areas of special interest:

• Enhancing public procurement by integrating social clauses into government contracts, which would benefit social enterprises and provide financial stability.

• Strengthening ties between social and technological innovation is essential, encouraging collaboration between tech startups and social enterprises to tackle societal challenges.
• Incorporating social clauses in procurement practices could significantly boost the social enterprise sector.

Next steps

The first Strategy Lab ended on a positive note and participants concluded the forum by highlighting the following tangible actions:

• The participants called for stronger cooperation between municipalities and social enterprises, legal reforms, and improved access to European funding, urging Lithuania to engage in initiatives like the Social Economy Action Plan with Latvia and Ukraine.
• A competence center was proposed to boost social entrepreneurship and innovation, this idea will be further explored.
• Lithuanian actors will seek opportunities to learn from countries like Germany and Ireland to advance its social enterprise ecosystem
• By 2025, Lithuania should adopt a national social economy strategy with clear frameworks, stakeholder engagement, and monitoring, per European Commission guidelines.

Within the framework of the EU-funded RESIST project the Lithuanian Innovation Centre will organise two further national Strategy Labs and will take part in two upcoming transnational strategy labs to learn from other countries across the Baltic Sea Region.

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