We are MERSE
Where public efforts and private companies do not reach, local communities often place their hopes in initiatives from local social entrepreneurs. A social entrepreneur wants to do good, driven not to maximise profit but to contribute to development in their local community. The objective of MERSE is to make it easier to start and develop social enterprises in rural areas. Researchers will study how social entrepreneurship can be stimulated and developed in rural areas with a special focus on young people and women's opportunities to get involved as social entrepreneurs. With the transnational cooperation between regions in the five countries: Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Ireland, the researchers will be able to exchange and compare country-specific knowledge and experiences on contextual social entrepreneurship. By conducting interactive sharing and co-creating place-based-best-practices, analyses similarities and differences, the project will search for gaps that different unique models and examples can fill for each other and support transformative knowledge across borders.
About the project
