Political · circle
Political stability and political will: the governance conditions every enterprise depends on, and whether the state has a strategy and institutions for social enterprise.
SEI 2026 · provisional edition 0.9.4
How well does Europe support social enterprise?
The Social Entrepreneurship Index scores 45 countries on the political, economic, legal, institutional and financial conditions they offer enterprises with a social mission. It draws on open statistics, published indices and a coded review of national policy at the end of 2025.
45-country average · composite 57.6EU-27 average · 64.7
45countries: EU-27, Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership, EFTA, UK, Turkey
40 / 63indicators scored now; the field survey adds the rest
5dimensions in the SEI Diamond
2015–2024Diamond over time on fixed goalposts
CC BY 4.0open scores, codes and sources
Where countries stand
Every country, on one scale
Composite scores from 0 to 100. The leaders are France (76.3), Belgium (74.0), Poland (73.0). The gap between regions is wider than the gap within most of them: the EU-27 averages 64.7, the Western Balkans 48.7 and the Eastern Partnership 43.2.
Each dot is a country; hover for its name and rank.Bar = regional mean.
The SEI Diamond
Five dimensions, one shape
Political conditions sit at the centre as a circle, because stability and political will shape everything else. The four corners are the economic, legal, institutional and financial environments. A larger, more even Diamond means a more supportive ecosystem; a lopsided one shows where a country holds social enterprises back.
Economic
Social need, labour-market slack and business dynamics, and whether social enterprises can reach markets, including public procurement with social clauses.
Legal
Whether social enterprise is defined and recognised in law, and the regulatory and judicial environment it operates in.
Institutional
Quality of public institutions, education and entrepreneurial culture, support structures for social enterprises and the transparency of policymaking.
Financial
EU and national funding dedicated to social enterprise, and access to finance for small firms.
Country profiles
45 country profiles
Each profile shows the Diamond against the regional average, ranks, the trend since 2015, and the eight policy indicators with their criteria and the documents behind each answer.
EU-27 27 countries · mean 64.7
Western Balkans 6 countries · mean 48.7
Eastern Partnership 6 countries · mean 43.2
EFTA 4 countries · mean 46.4
UK and Turkey 2 countries · mean 53.3
Beyond Europe, indicative
Ten countries in South America and Africa, scored on the same method and goalposts but not ranked with the 45. How to read their scores.
South America 4 countries · indicative, not ranked
Sub-Saharan Africa 3 countries · indicative, not ranked
North Africa 3 countries · indicative, not ranked
Data and publications
Open by default
Release 0.9.4 · 8 November 2026
Indicative scores for ten countries beyond Europe
- Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay; Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal; Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia: scored on the same indicators, method and goalposts as the 45 European countries, with 32 to 35 of the 40 indicators available per country.
- Indicative and not ranked: the scores of the 45 are unchanged, and each profile shows where the country would stand if it were added.
- Their policy criteria were coded from public sources at end-2025; 128 answers were re-checked before release and 31 changed.
- Release 0.9.3 (7 November 2026): the policy indicators coded against written criteria — what changed and why.
- The explorer in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Macedonian, Albanian and Serbian.
- Next: SEI 2026 version 1.0 with field-survey indicators, launched at SECon 2027 in Skopje.
Open dataset and methodology noteCSV, JSON and Frictionless package · CC BY 4.0
DOI on deposit
Why social entrepreneurship ecosystems need measuringPaper A · literature review
In preparationMeasuring the social entrepreneurship ecosystem: the SEI methodPaper B · method and results
In preparationSEI 2021 pilotCountry notes and dimension pages of the 2021 site, as published
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