Design for policy: the canvas for social economy and the compass for

regenerative entrepreneurship.
starglide . livepods.eu

The Canvas for Social Economy was a two-year open source project run by the European
Commission’s Directorate for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW)
in collaboration with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (DG JRC).

The aim of the project was to develop a monitoring and evaluation methodology and a tool to
allow entrepreneurs and public administrators to map, visualise and evaluate the key
dimensions and priorities of an entrepreneurial activity, beyond profit creation, and offer an
opportunity to reconcile the many definitions of Social Economy that exist across Europe.

The approach merges traditional co-design, critical design, social design 1, semiotics, visual
design and product design practices with principles of management of complex-adaptive
systems as defined by Dave Snowden in his Cynefin Framework2.

1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljuq0qEpIR8

2 European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Rancati, A., Snowden, D., Managing complexity (and chaos) in times of crisis : a field guide for
decision makers inspired by the Cynefin framework, Publications Office, 2021, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2760/353
The premises are that in order to understand any (social economy) activity (in a complex-
adaptive system) we need to pay attention to:

• The Context, intended as interactions among roles, boundaries, constraints, stocks and
flows. We understand a particular context by visually mapping it.

• A diverse set of coherent dimensions that identify how the activity interacts with society,
the environment and economy and how it benefits them, if at all.

• The scale, allowing micro, meso and macro dimensions to emerge.

• The dynamic nature of relationships and flows, which requires constant monitoring as a
form of continuous learning process.

In addition to these key factors, the methodology also recommends innovative narrative-based
methods for monitoring and evaluation, based on the mutual interaction among the “owners” of
the social economy activity and their collective audiences and stakeholders.

The project started with a co-design process that involved experts from different fields,
practitioners, and Commission officials from DG GROW and DG JRC. The purpose of the co-
design process was to define a first scaffolding for the methodology and tool, setting its key
dimensions.

The first proof of concept was then refined internally at the JRC, and tested in approximately 300
mappings of social economy enterprises across Europe. The testing phase gave a series of
insights on how to turn the proof of concept in a first prototype.

The exercise received enthusiastic support from the social economy community and from some
of the local administration involved, while the key critical points were identified in its lack of a
digital platform to cross reference all the results.

The conceptual approach adopted in this project represents an important change in how policy-
making methodologies and tools can be ideated, developed and monitored with the support of
design and complexity-aware approaches. In this sense, the same principles are now being
applied in the definition of New European Bauhaus compass, a work in progress at the Joint
Research Centre.

The introduction of critical design associated with visual methods of reasoning in particular is
crucial to advance the development of cross-sectorial, multi-level, multi-stakeholder policies.
The Social Economy Canvas demonstrates how design culture3, beyond the apparently never-

3 Ocula 24, vol21, no 24 (October 2020), Michela Deni | Introduzione. La cultura del progetto, quando è design DOI: 10.12977/ocula2020-39
ending florishing of new disciplinary branches, can positively enrich the development of policy
and legal tools.

The methodology and tool are available online in a dedicated open platform at
https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/wikis/pages/viewpage.action?
spaceKey=SEC&title=Social+Economy+Community (membership needed). A further description
of the project is available at https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/eupolicylab/portfolios/social-economy-
canvas/

A second phase of independent design is now under way, with the intent to develop the existing
canvas into a compass for regenerative entrepreneurship. This design phase is independent from
the scope of the initial project and is developed outside of the European Commission.