2011: the European welfare state is seeking radical redesign, as social entrepreneurs and social innovators prepare to rise to the challenge.

1. //TRENDS//
The big picture: what Europe is doing and why
Alberto Cottica
D4SB Master Course
From opportunity assessment to business planning in social business
Lesson 4

2. 60
% of working-age population
45
30
% of population ages 65 and above
15
0
1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008
Demographic trends in some European countries, unweighted averages
Source: World Bank

3. Rising costs of welfare
• health care costs rising +8% per year since 1998 in Sweden
• health care costs rising +6.4% per year in France
• 13% of the workforce in the Netherlands is classified as sick or disabled
(2004)
• health care costs are 15% of GDP in the USA (2004): expected to reach $ 3.4
trillion, or 18% of GDP, by 2013

4. services don’t scale: productivity
Baumol’s disease stagnates compared to that of
manufacturing

5. The powers that be are getting worried....

6. Different systems have different takes

7. European Initiative for Social Innovation
Council of Europe advisory group
Social Innovation Coalition
Think tanks: NESTA, Young Foundation...
Large investments: Social Innovation Park in Bilbao

8. The Big Society: http://thebigsociety.co.uk/

9. An unprecedented opportunity for social business

10. ... but also turf & definition wars

11. Keywords: decentralization

12. Keywords: inclusion

13. Keywords: mutuality/reciprocality

14. Keywords: technology

15. Assignments!
• Find and discuss data on demographic trends and rising costs of welfare
• Identify a social business opportunity and look for the data to back it up
• write a blog post/wikipedia entry on the British Big Society
• write a blog post/wikipedia entry on another concept for tackling the same
problem