ISICS E-book A4.inddWe are continually dealing with the pressure of social challenges in contemporary society that challenge us to acquire specific skills and knowledge. Students and adult learners have the greatest potential to face these challenges and we feel that they should be provided with the support they need to be successful. One of the most efficient ways to provide support is through the organisation and running of various competitions, facilitating learning spaces in which students and adult learners can share their ideas.

According to our view, the social impacts represent changes in the following categories:

  • “people’s way of life – that is, how they live, work, play and interact with one another on a day-to-day basis;
  • their culture – that is, their shared beliefs, customs, values and language or dialect;
  • their community – its cohesion, stability, character, services and facilities;
  • their political systems – the extent to which people are able to participate in decisions that affect their lives, the level of democratisation that is taking place, and the resources provided for this purpose;
  • their environment – the quality of the air and water people use; the availability and quality of the food they eat; the level of hazards or risk, dust and noise they are exposed to; the adequacy of sanitation, their physical safety, and their access to and control over resources;
  • their health and wellbeing – health is a state of complete physical, mental, social and spiritual wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity;
  • their personal and property rights – particularly whether people are economically affected, or experience personal disadvantage which may include a violation of their civil liberties;
  • their fears and aspirations – their perceptions about their safety, their fears about the future of their community, and their aspirations for their future and the future of their children.”1

The aim of the booklet is to present different competitions and courses as best practices and case studies, in order to encourage enterprising individuals to make significant and outstanding contributions to social entrepreneurship.

The first part of the booklet is about the contributors that participated during the research process and provided the dataset for the research.

Following the introduction to the research, the booklet provides a short description about the evaluation system. The model for evaluating the identified practices and cases focused on the following dimensions and activities:

  • organisation of the competitions and courses,
  • recruitment of participants,
  • implementation of the competitions and courses,
  • dissemination,
  • feedbacks received and,
  • increase in the number of individuals/teams/organisations participating in the competition compared to previous years.

The evaluation criteria were based on the sum of the given scores divided by the number of indicators, where scores were given.

Since both qualitative and quantitative methods were applied during the evaluation of the research results, the booklet broadly discusses both the quantitative and qualitative results. We present 12-12 examples of best practices and case studies, as well as 3 courses on social entrepreneurship and innovation.

In the conclusion of the booklet we propose a concept to support the organization of highly competitive international competitions.

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