Sofia Development Association starts a new project on countering hate speech

Sofia Development Association is a lead partner under a two-year project - Coalition of Positive Messengers to Counter Online Hate Speech, funded by the European Commission – Directorate-General Justice, which started on 1 October 2016 and will end on 30 September 2018.

The project is being implemented by a consortium of 8 organizations from 7 countries: Sofia Development Association (Bulgaria) – lead partner, Libera Università di Lingue e Comunicazione IULM  - IUL (Italy), the Languages Company (United Kingdom), Center for Peace (Croatia), People in Need (Czech Republic), Asociația Divers (Romania), Associazione FORMA.Azione (Italy), and Municipality of Agii Anargiri-Kamatero (Greece).

This project tackles the issue of hate speech - online hate speech in particular, targeted against migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in these 7 EU countries. The action addresses the need for more effective civil society response to online hate speech through sharing and disseminating best practices. The project focuses on 1) building multi-stakeholder coalitions for developing counter-narratives to denounce hate speech and negative representations of migrants and refugees, and 2) disseminating the positive messages through media literacy and public awareness campaign.

The main objective of the project is to strengthen the response of civil society at the national and EU level to online hate speech through active engagement of local communities in creating and sharing powerful counter-narratives against xenophobic discourse.

The project also aims:

• to compile and share best practices for countering the spread of online hate speech against migrants, refugees and minorities through awareness-raising campaigns;
• to provide new data on the nature, scope and impact of online hate speech targeting migrants and refugees, in order to aid national and EU authorities to develop more effective integration and anti-discrimination policies;
• to foster shared understanding and communication between the communities most vulnerable to hate speech and mainstream society in Europe;
• to educate and train the target groups about hate speech, media literacy, creation and dissemination of web content.

The main project activities include:

• conducting country assessments and cross-country comparison of practices to counter online hate speech;
• conducting media content analysis in each country and cross-country comparison to analyze the spread of online hate speech against migrants and refugees;
• creation of national coalitions from state and non-state actors to counter online hate speech;
• training events with target groups;
• development of training modules and sharing of practices among partners;
• national public campaigns for positive messages and awareness raising on hate speech in each country;
• creation of website and interactive platform with resources on hate speech;
• final international conference.

Sofia to host a prestigious event

Following a challenging debate and tense voting, Sofia won the hosting of an external seminar of the Commission for Social Policy, Education, Employment, Research and Culture (SEDEC) at the Committee of the Regions.Sofia proposed a topic of present interest and an attractive programme, which won the support of about two-thirds of committee members. 

In May 2017, Sofia will bring together representatives of European cities and regions to work on the main theme of the seminar - “The Role of Culture for Social Inclusion, Social Innovation and Intercultural Dialogue”. They will get familiar with and learn from Sofia’s experience in the field of management of cultural processes, innovative public-private partnerships for funding culture, and transformation of the urban environment through art installations and initiatives.

 Sofia won for a second time the privilege to host such an event. In 2011, Sofia hosted a conference on the topic of “The Contribution of Culture to the Development of European Cities and Regions”: http://www.sofia-da.eu/en/conferences/the-importance-of-culture-for-the-development-of-europe%E2%80%99s-regions-and-cities.html.

The applications for both events were submitted to the Commission and successfully defended by Mrs. Malina Edreva, Permanent Representative to the Committee of the Regions and Chairperson of the Commission for Education, Culture, Science and Cultural Diversity, Sofia Municipal Council.

InnoBridge partners assessed Sofia Public-Private Fund for Innovations as an R&D and innovation policy instrument

Experts and partners under the InnoBridge project assessed Sofia Public-Private Fund for Innovations as a novel policy instrument for R&D and innovation during the 2nd Interregional Learning Workshop, held in Sofia on 14 - 16 September 2016.

Within the framework of the workshop, the experts conducted a peer review to assess the innovativeness of the policy instrument, discussed lessons learnt from the review and evaluated how the instrument is being communicated. It also included onsite visits to Muzeyko and Sofia Tech Park.

The Policy Instrument – Sofia Public-Private Fund for Innovations – is the first of its kind in Bulgaria. It proposes a public private partnership model to provide access to funding for more innovative and risky cultural and creative projects. The Fund is recognized as a good practice by EUROCITIES in 2015.

The peer review appraised the Fund highly in terms of organization, functioning and innovativeness and as a model to be emulated.

Participants in the event were representatives of project partner organizations: Office of the Regional Government of Lower Austria – Lead partner, Universities and Higher Education Foundation of Castilla y León, Autonomous Province of Bolzano – South Tyrol, Pannon Novum West­Transdanubian Regional Innovation Non­profit Ltd., Council of Tampere Region, Regional Development Agency of Alentejo (ADRAL), Sofia Development Association, Applied Research and Communications Fund, and Marshal Office of the Malopolska Region.

InnoBridge is an INTERREG EUROPE project gathering nine partners from eight different European Countries. It addresses common needs related to innovation and regional competitiveness with focus in the insufficient exploitation of R&D results by SMEs and their lack of access to public R&D results. Increasing SMEs’ competitiveness is at the core of the InnoBridge project by improving the Innovation Bridge and related policy instruments for SME´s. Therefore, Universities as well as Research and Technology Organisations (RTO), indispensable actors for business knowledge transfer and the commercialisation of public R&D results like regional or local authorities, are integrated part of the InnoBridge approach.

InnoBridge partners will assess Sofia Public-Private Fund for Innovations as an R&D and innovation policy instrument

Experts and partners under the InnoBridge project will assess Sofia Public-Private Fund for Innovations as a novel policy instrument for R&D and innovation during the 2nd Interregional Learning Workshop, to be held in Sofia on 14 - 16 September 2016.

Within the framework of the workshop, the experts will conduct a peer review to assess the innovativeness of the policy instrument, discuss lessons learnt from the review and evaluate how the instrument is communicated. It will also include onsite visits to Muzeyko and Sofia Tech Park.

The Policy Instrument – Sofia Public-Private Fund for Innovations – is the first of its kind in Bulgaria. It proposes a public private partnership model to provide access to funding for more innovative and risky cultural and creative projects. The Fund is recognized as a good practice by EUROCITIES in 2015.

Participants in the event are representatives of project partner organizations: Office of the Regional Government of Lower Austria – Lead partner, Universities and Higher Education Foundation of Castilla y León, Autonomous Province of Bolzano – South Tyrol, Pannon Novum West­Transdanubian Regional Innovation Non­profit Ltd., Council of Tampere Region, Regional Development Agency of Alentejo (ADRAL), Sofia Development Association, Applied Research and Communications Fund, and Marshal Office of the Malopolska Region.

InnoBridge is an INTERREG EUROPE project gathering nine partners from eight different European Countries. It addresses common needs related to innovation and regional competitiveness with focus in the insufficient exploitation of R&D results by SMEs and their lack of access to public R&D results. Increasing SMEs’ competitiveness is at the core of the InnoBridge project by improving the Innovation Bridge and related policy instruments for SME´s. Therefore, Universities as well as Research and Technology Organisations (RTO), indispensable actors for business knowledge transfer and the commercialisation of public R&D results like regional or local authorities, are integrated part of the InnoBridge approach.

Beijing and Sofia will promote exchanges and cooperation in all fields of cultural creative industries

Both cities signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Activities involved in this Memorandum will be carried out in order to develop the friendly relations between Beijing and Sofia, as well as promote exchanges and cooperation of the two cities in all fields of cultural creative industries. The operation details will be determined by the participating institutions.
The structures that are responsible to coordinate this MOU are Sofia Development Association and
The State-owned Cultural Assets Supervision and Administration Office of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality.