Sostre Cívic receives the Social Innovation Award from the European Innovation Council

The jury valued the capacity for social and ecological transformation of the housing projects in Barcelona and Calonge, both designed by the architects' cooperative Celobert. Each winning initiative wins €50,000, but all finalists were able to participate in a two-day business innovation training stay in Brussels.

The winners of the tenth edition of the European Social Innovation Competition (EUSIC) were announced yesterday by the European Commission and the European Innovation Council and SME Executive Agency (EISMEA). At an event held in Brussels, the Jury announced the three winning initiatives among the 21 finalist proposals. Sostre Cívic, a Catalan cooperative housing cooperative, shared the podium with other innovative proposals from Italy and Austria.

This is the third time in 10 years that a Catalan initiative has won a prize in this competition. This recognition for Sostre Cívic comes just a month after it received the Silver Housing Award from World Habitat, the most prestigious international housing awards.

The finalist project submitted to the European competition was developed between Sostre Cívic and Celobert, which presented two cooperative housing projects on different scales, incorporating strategies of social and environmental impact, as well as a desire for replicability in the territory. Of the winning proposal, the Jury valued that it "successfully implements an alternative, fairer, more accessible, non-profit, non-speculative and transformative housing model".

Among the finalists in this year's edition were also two cooperative housing projects in transfer of use in Catalonia: La Borda, a pioneer in the new construction of cooperative housing in Sants (Barcelona); and La Titaranya, a project in promotion accompanied by La Dinamo in Valls (Tarragona).

Sostre Cívic has more than 1,100 members throughout the territory, and promotes the cooperative housing model in cession of use. It is the pioneer and benchmark organisation in this tenancy model. It currently manages a total of 26 projects, 9 of them already in coexistence with more than 120 homes. It has recently been recognised with a silver award at the UN World Inhabited Awards, the leading international housing awards.