This project aims to promote the interregional cooperation among seven public bodies at the regional and the local level, one school of public administration and one public training center coming from different EU-MSs. The overall objective of the project is to enforce the effectiveness of the regional public policies in promoting and supporting social entrepreneurship as an asset for local economic development and territorial competitiveness. The European Parliament, the Commission and the Economic and Social Committee have recognised the specificities of the enterprises of the social economy and their capacity to correct major economic and social imbalances and to help to achieve a number of general interest objectives.Starting from different level of competences and experiences, the partners intend to exchange experiences, methods and tools which have proved successful in strengthening the economic viability and entrepreneurial spirit of the social enterprises. The activities have been organized into 4 working steps which concern:Step 1: the identification, selection and comparison of good practices regarding public policies supporting SEs.Step 2: the deepening of the knowledge of the selected good practices in order to facilitate their transfer into recipients countries Step 3: the transferring of the good practices into the recipients countries, on the basis of local road maps defined with the contribution of all partners.Step 4: the developing of joint guidelines for improving the capability of local public authorities in managing public procurement for the provision of services of general interests involving social enterprises.The main outputs of the operation will be a catalogue of the identified and selected good practices on regional public instruments to support social enterprises and joint guidelines on innovative strategies favouring the emergence of new public social partnership/procurement models at the local level. The expected results of the operation refer to an increased capacity of the policy makers in detecting the needs of social enterprises in their territories, thus favouring a local sustainable development.Communication will play a crucial role in supporting the operation all through its implementation. The project outputs and results will be widely circulated and mainstreamed at the local, regional, national and EU level. Achievements: The PASE (Public Policies And Social Enterprises) Partnership is currently focusing on the selection, recollection and comparison of experiences on how public policies can stir up, support and encourage the development of social enterprises. To this regard, from the start of the project until today (end of 2009), 3 interregional events (launch conference and kick off meeting, workshops with a study visit) took. The launch conference, held in Ancona (IT) on March 2009 and attended by 60 participants, targeted to the presentation of the project goals for both, the the LP local stakeholders and for all the project partners. It gave also clues, for the partners sake, on the local regional and national Italian context. Partners were also involved in some communication activities (press conference with interviews). The other two interregional events, related to the Component 3 activities were aimed at the the fine-tuning of the tool and the methodology to share the different experiences on the social economy enterprises. The goal being, the selection, recollection and comparison of the most significant experiences, in order to carry targeted study visits and then draw up a catalogue of the best developed practices referring to how public policies can stir up, support and encourage the development of social enterprises (Component 3 activities).Hence a workshop was held in Rome, IT (28-29 May 2009). It was attended by representatives of all the the project partner (30 participants). Who focused on the comparison of the different concepts of SE in each partner's context. The Partners also validated the standard tool, prepared by the Municipality of Rome, to recollect the information relevant to the different SE's features and for the identification and comparison of the best practices.Given the diversity of the local regional situations, the partners agreed on devising a tool – a best practice collection grid – in which each partner would first describe the regional ambit Secondly, to describe the practice itself, dealing with policies and interventions which have proved successful in strengthening the economic viability and the entrepreneurship spirit of the social enterprises (with details on the timescale, total costs for the implementation of the practices, promoters, target beneficiaries, results achieved, assessment, lessons learned, contact information).The Rome work group meeting was followed by a study visit to the local partner experience: an incubator for social enterprises and social economy organisations, set up thanks to the cooperation of the Municipality of Rome with social-economy stakeholders (La città dellaltra economia – The city of the alternative economy) Following this activity, the third interregional event took place in Madrid (21-22 October 2009 and was attended by representatives of all the Partners organizations (30 participants). The goal of the workshop was to screen the recollected practices and to detect those to be considered best practices. Out of more than 40 experiences recollected, 16 good practices were identified. The latter being considered the most significant to detect and meet the needs of social enterprises at each partner territorial level. A study visit plan was hence finalized, that should allow, in the course of the 2010, to deepen the knowledge of each selected practice and to release a catalogue of the best practices.At communication level, from the start of the project, several activities took place. Press conferences were organised by each hosting Partner in combination with each interregional event (hence, in Ancona and Roma – IT and Madrid- ES). Several press realeases were issued by each Partner with articles appearing in the media. The project website was created and opened www.pase-project.eu. The multilanguage project brochure was created, by the LP in cooperation with the partnership and finally the the first project newsletter was edited.