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 0.9.1
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 59.0EU-27 average · 66.2
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 Czechia (76.7), Spain (76.4), Belgium (76.1). The gap between regions is wider than the gap within most of them: the EU-27 averages 66.2, the Western Balkans 53.6 and the Eastern Partnership 41.1.
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 codes with the documents behind them.
EU-27 27 countries · mean 66.2
Western Balkans 6 countries · mean 53.6
Eastern Partnership 6 countries · mean 41.1
EFTA 4 countries · mean 45.7
UK and Turkey 2 countries · mean 57.2
Data and publications
Open by default
Release 0.9.1 · 3 November 2026
Every value checked against its source
- About 7,000 values re-pulled from Eurostat, the World Bank and Freedom House: no mismatches.
- Six policy codes corrected and seven boundary codes settled by the authors.
- Each EU policy code now links to the law, strategy or programme behind it.
- 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
Archive