development of policy and legislation for social innovation

More opportunities for dialogue between the UK and China was one of the main conclusions to arise from the teleconference on the development of policy and legislation for social innovation between London, Chengdu and Beijing organised by the British Council and i-genius with the support of EMC. The special event heard from an expert panel including Euclid Executive Director Filippo Addarii, Professor Olinga Ta’eed, Big Society Impact Investment Adviser, Dr. Guang Chen, Dean of Public Administration at Southwest Jiaotong University, Hao Gui, CSR manager, Intel (China) and chaired by Tommy Hutchinson, founder of i-genius.

The participants highlighted continued dialogue, greater media exposure and improved government support as the main priorities for policy makers.

Professor Ta’eed said recent UK government initiatives to enable local communities to run their own services such as waste management was a major driver in encouraging social innovation. Dr Guang Chen said Chinese social businesses would greatly benefit from official legal recognition whilst Intel’s Hao Gui  said social businesses could be granted certain tax advantages to support their delivery of public services. Fillippo Addarii highlighted the important role played by the European Commission’s Social Business initiative and said we should take “inspiration from Deng Xiaoping’s special economic zones to reintroduce the market economy in China.”

After the British Council dialogue, i-genius’ Tommy Hutchinson who chaired the three hour discussion said “We hope these dialogues help the development of social entrepreneurship and make an important step-by-step contribution to creating better understanding and mutual support between the UK (and EU) and China.”