The first contribution of the Third Sector Impact (TSI) project, in which EMES is a consortium member, is a “consensus definition” published under the title “The Third Sector in Europe: Towards a Consensus Conceptualization”.

This working paper provides a foundation for documenting the third sector’s collective contributions and for designing policies that take greater advantage of unique strengths of the third sector. The proposed conceptualization of the third sector in Europe, to be understood as the definition of a “common core”, is the result of a bottom-up approach engaging researchers and third sector stakeholders from eight European countries representing a wide range of research disciplines approaching the field from different angles and methodologies, and is a first milestone towards TSI’s objective of making Europe’s third sector more visible – its scope and scale, existing and potential impacts, and barriers to full third sector contribution to the continent’s common welfare.

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