The Portugal Social Innovation program is a Portuguese government initiative to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the country, with bold and original ideas to solve serious problems through investment.

In this way, the program mobilizes a large amount of money to make investments in ideas that really aim to solve issues through social entrepreneurship.

Thus, the program is already boosting the national market with the implementation of several projects through notices and open applications. In fact, Social Innovation has already contributed to several projects in the country.

But, if you want to know more about this great program organized by the Portugal 2020 agreement, come and find out more!

In this way, the Portugal Social Innovation Program manages to manage around 150 million euros originating from the European Social Fund. Thus, several notices were opened for project registration.

Currently, 18 competitions have been held, with more than 600 projects approved throughout Portugal. The projects revolve around fundamental issues, such as health, social inclusion, unemployment, among others.

Furthermore, the program also has as one of its main objectives the improvement of various entities in the country when resolving social problems. Therefore, there are four instruments that guide the program:

Let’s find out how Portugal Social Innovation works? Firstly, there is a need to identify a social problem, such as the risk of inhibiting the population's quality of life.

Then, based on a concrete problem, social entrepreneurship is carried out. In other words, through various innovative ideas, solutions are thought of for this problem, which also impacts the country economically.

Furthermore, social innovation only emerges when planned social entrepreneurship is implemented and with positive results.

In this way, social innovation is when through these new ideas, social quality improves and the problem is solved.

Each of the 4 instruments mentioned above has a target audience! So, let's understand each of them a little better. Well, in the case of Training, the objective is the development of teams and social entities.

In the case of partnerships, several private entities can come forward to support the project as long as they have no connection with the entity to be financed. And the impact title is intended for economic-social entities.

Finally, the Fund (FIS) is for projects in the consolidation phase of entities that can reimburse public investments.

All information about the Social Innovation Portugal Investment is available on the project website and can be consulted at any time. In the “Applications” tab you can find open and closed competitions.

Furthermore, in the “projects” tab, you can find the different types of projects through the country map. This makes it much easier to find which ones are close to you.

Furthermore, you can find projects both by investment area and by financing instrument. This way, just organize the filters in the right corner of the screen and check the map on the left.

Now, if you want, you can check out some of the programs that receive investment to help the country develop socially and economically! 

This is a project that received almost 100 thousand euros in public and private investment. The goal is to take care of the oral health of the elderly population! He operates in the Pinhal Interior Norte Region!

This is a social inclusion project with more than 400 thousand euros in investment. The objective is to transform the lives of the population through art in the Quinta do Loureiro neighborhood in Lisbon!

This is because this is one of the poorest regions of the city and suffers from the exclusion of its members!

Another project to combat social exclusion and with more than 100 thousand euros invested, Re-food aims to deal with hunger, food waste and social fragmentation.

Furthermore, SmartFarmer helps the flow of agricultural products from small producers in all regions of Portugal!

With more than 80 thousand euros invested, the project puts producers in direct contact with consumers! Thus, he works in the areas of Citizenship and Community.

This is an education program for children trying to combat early school leaving.

So, this program has several activities that are not present in the Portuguese school curriculum, with a playful and interactive character.

Now that you know how to invest in the Portugal Social Innovation Program, how about finding out about other benefits that the government offers. For example, did you know that foreigners can obtain a NISS?

So, in case you don't know, the NISS is the Social Security Identification Number and is essential for getting a job in the country. Furthermore, it brings the opportunity to enjoy other rights, not just labor rights.

So, if you want to know more details about how you can obtain your NISS from outside Portugal, or even want to understand more about how this registration works and what benefits it encompasses, come find out more.

Click on the link below and check out all the details about the NISS for foreigners in our exclusive review. Enjoy everything Portugal has to offer you!