Innovative initiatives for a common good: Interview with Eva Moe, Manager of the Swedish Knowledge Foundation’s programme Societal Entrepreneurship
Eva Moe is a recognized leader of change-directed programmes, former manager of he national Swedish project ”Learning in the future” and the regional development project “Attractive Region” for the Norrbotten County Council. Her background is in communications, she has worked as a journalist and Head of Communications at Luleå University of Technology and the city of Sundbyberg.
The following interview between Lidia Varbanova and Eva Moe (EM) was done on 29 April 2009 via email, with later correspondance in May and June.
In 2008, the Knowledge Foundation has made a major effort to boost societal entrepreneurship in Sweden. During a nine-year period, about SEK 120 million will be allocated to education and research in this field. Why is the Knowledge Foundation is interested in supporting social entrepreneurship? Why is it important?
EM: The Knowledge Foundation supports research and education in Sweden. Our remit requires us to challenge the established structures, stay one step ahead and operate at the intersection between the business community, the public sector, higher education institutes and research institutions. In that area, our task is to actively establish conditions to stimulate innovation, creativity and personal contacts between organizations and people with a will to develop and drive Sweden forward through knowledge and competence development.
The Knowledge Foundation’s Societal Entrepreneurship Programme has three pillars: research, competence development and creating an understanding of societal entrepreneurship and how it contributes to the development of Sweden. The Knowledge Foundation uses the term societal entrepreneurship. The meaning is close to social entrepreneurship, but somewhat broader. The main reason for using societal instead of social is that in Sweden the word social connects mainly to problems, not opportunities. Our preliminary definition of societal entrepreneurship is: Innovative initiatives for a common good. More information on the Societal Entrepreneurship Programme can be found at www.kks.se/samhallsentreprenorer and at http://www.samhallsentreprenor.se which is the virtual meeting place for societal entrepreneurs in Sweden.
The Knowledge Foundation sees societal entrepreneurship as a key to the future. Sweden needs technological development – but we also need new ideas for our housing estates, new ways of producing and consuming that respect the environment and new ways of providing public services and care: in short, we need social innovations. Many of our social solutions were built for the structure of the industrial society, when borders were more important – borders between nations, between the market and the public sector and between work and leisure. The difficult issues that we face today – such as the climate change, migration and segregation, globalization and unequal distribution – cut across borders. Societal entrepreneurs are good at crossing borders and use different logics – both commercial and social.
Social entrepreneurship mainly concerns solving social problems by people who take their own initiative to improve areas that they believe are missing or not working. It is a new concept and requires increasing awareness and education to get more people involved. What in your view are the most effective tools and methods to raise public awareness?
EM: We need to collect and demonstrate the good examples. We need the ambassadors from different fields who talk about societal entrepreneurship as a new way of solving problems. In the Knowledge Foundation’s programme we use mainly networking as our communication-strategy – instead of media and launching campaigns we try to involve the right people and let them be the messengers. We have groups on Facebook and we put a lot of efforts into building an online community for social entrepreneurs.
Social entrepreneurs are active in the areas such as: children health, climate crisis, problems with pollution, human rights, literacy in poor areas and others. Arts and culture are rarely mentioned in the literature and world practice on social entrepreneurship. What is the impact of social entrepreneurship on the cultural sector?
EM: In Sweden we have several examples of brilliant societal entrepreneurs from the cultural sector – for example Hultsfredsfestivalen, Cirkus Cirkör and Drömmarnas hus. They are organisations that have worked for a long time with and in culture, music, new circus, theater, et cetera as ways of solving social problems and contributing to the local development.
The power of social networking and mobile communications is widely used to spread innovative new ideas and drive engagement in social change. What forms of social entrepreneurship are taking advantage of the existence of the new technology? Could you give examples of online spaces for social entrepreneurship and comment on their usefulness?
EM: Societal entrepreneurs in general are networkers, and they use all kinds of new technology and social media to communicate and mobilize. There are also a few examples in Sweden of societal entrepreneurs acting through Internet or social medias. A good example is the foundation A Click For The Forest, where you buy trees and save old forests; or the new search engine Growyn where for every search you support the environment and a sustainable development projects.
In the current situation of a global financial crisis - does the new phenomena “social entrepreneurship” provide new opportunities and business models for the cultural sector?
EM: I can’t comment on the cultural sector – not my area – but I am surely convinced that this is a moment in time for societal entrepreneurship. The current financial crisis forces people, organizations and companies to rethink their ways of doing things, their business-models and their long-time objectives. I think we will see and hear a lot about social and societal entrepreneurship the next years.
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