Introduction

The contribution of social economy organizations to the economic, social and environmental development is increasingly recognized at international level.A wealth of research is emerging constantly in this field.This special issue of Quality of Life Journal is dedicated to social and solidarity economy and its challenges and perspectives for sustainable development.The goal of this special issue is to approach and discuss the situation of social and solidarity economy at international level, in terms of opportunities and constraints for development.A preliminary version of the selected articles included in this special issue have been presented and discussed during the workshops of the 7th CIRIEC International Research Conference on Social Economy "Social and Solidarity Economy -moving towards a new economic system, June 2019.The CIRIEC conference was an opportunity for academics, practitioners and decision makers from 42 countries to discuss the latest research challenges and topics in the field of social and solidarity economy at international level.This special issue on social and solidarity economy gathers four research papers focusing on topics such as social economy contribution to the implementation of sustainable development goals, social economy role in local development, social economy eco-system, the role of social economy entities in welfare system.The selected papers bring together an international perspective on social and solidarity economy development trends, by analyzing different approaches and case studies from Europe and Latin America.The social economy eco-system from Croatia is presented in the article Current challenges and potential of social economy in Croatia.The authors analyse the trends and challenges of the social economy development in Croatia as the newest EU state.The paper provides an assessment of the current state of affair in the cooperative sector and social entrepreneurship, and an overview of the institutional context of the development of cooperatives and social enterprises.Based on the assessment of the social economy in Croatia and of EU best practices, the authors propose some solutions for the development of the social economy sector

Economic system · Economics · Political science · Social economy · Sociology · Solidarity · Solidarity economy · Sustainable development · Computer Science · Social Sciences and Governance