Event participants are expected to be companies, social entrepreneurs, organisations, and researchers from the non-EU Black Sea countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine), as well as from Bulgaria and Romania.

The aim of the event is to promote social, sustainable and frugal innovation among participants and to raise awareness on the advantages of these three types of innovation and on collaboration in the field. It also aims to give opportunity to participants to present a case/initiative/project related to any of the three types of innovation that they are working on or familiar with and to share drivers, barriers and challenges they face or consider important with regard to the topics of social, sustainable and frugal innovation.

The workshop outcome will be a list of challenges, drivers and barriers related to the three types of innovations and a list of policy-relevant messages/recommendations addressing those challenges, drivers and barriers. All these will be presented to public authorities, NGOs and business agencies during a second workshop on social, sustainable and frugal innovation that will be organised in Tbilisi, Georgia in the begining of December 2017. Furthermore, three of the presented in Sofia cases/initiatives/projects will be featured during the workshop in Tbilisi.