The Innovation Booster "Co-Designing Human Services" comprises an annual innovation cycle for the start-up funding of innovative project ideas in the social and health sector.
Following the call for proposals in relation to the annual theme in February, the aim is to identify challenges and submit them for the Social Innovation Forum, which takes place at the beginning of May. The Social Innovation Forum is an open national one-day event that offers interested parties the opportunity to discuss the challenges that have been submitted. Innovation teams - whether they come together at the Forum or otherwise - have 10 days afterwards to further clarify their challenges: What issues and problems do they seek to work on? Who will be part of the innovation team? What solutions can be envisaged? How does the team want to work together? With the answers to these questions in hand, you may want to apply for financial support (CHF 5,000), which you can use to deepen your analysis over four months and search for innovative ideas.
By mid-May, the Innovation Booster's panel will select up to 24 proposals. The following criteria are being used: connection with the annual theme, relevance and importance of the challenge, the participation of citizens and/or users in the team and the potential for innovation. At the beginning of the Ideation & Disccovery Phase, a meeting of all innovation teams takes place beginning June. The innovation teams will exchange ideas and receive methodological suggestions in workshops.
Four months later, the innovation teams can apply for further financial support for the testing phase (up to CHF 10,000) with a "pitch". During this phase, the innovation teams may develop prototypes, test solutions and adapt these to the implementation conditions. The results of the testing phase are presented to the public at a networking event six months later, in March of each year, with the aim of promoting further funding for the project idea.
The only condition of participation for the innovation teams is that they supplement the financial support received from the Innovation Booster with a cash contribution of 10%. With a maximum funding of CHF 15,000, this would be CHF 1,500.
You can find a summary of the innovation cycle in French. Below is a graphic visualisation of the process (also in French):
