Social Entrepreneurship Policy in Korea, Japan, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Germany, 2025

Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Policy Review (EEPR), 13(2) · January 2026

This report reviews the social entrepreneurship policy that the governments of Korea, Japan, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Germany set out from January to December 2025 in six domains — regulation and law, finance, culture, support, human capital and markets — and analyses it in its context, against theory and in practice. Support was least stable where it rested on annual budgets: Korea cut and then restored its social enterprise budget, the United States proposed deep cuts to community development finance and national service, France wound down a financing action and Germany’s draft budgets cut a dedicated title. Dormant money, public lending, work integration and the British rules on social value in procurement were the strongest measures; new legal forms and framework laws were mostly bills or promises, and culture was the thinnest domain. The governments of Korea, Japan, the United States, France and Germany changed during the year, and much of their policy was announced for 2026 or still pending at its end.