The EU’s mission-oriented research and innovation (R&I) policy takes a new approach to tackling society’s greatest challenges. Rather than focusing on individual sectors or topics, it structures measures under overarching problems and expected solutions.
The five missions are Adaptation to Climate Change (Climate Mission), Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities (Cities Mission), Restoring Oceans and Waters (Water Mission), a Soil Deal for Europe (Soil Mission), and Working with Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan (Cancer Mission). Together, they reflect the EU’s ambition to build a greener, healthier, more inclusive, and resilient society.
To address the underlying social, economic, political and environmental challenges of the 21st century, technological innovation is not enough. Therefore, the SI Mission Facility aims to unlock the untapped potential of social innovations (SIs) in boosting progress across the EU-Missions. Social Innovations (SIs) as changing social practices and relations have the potential to address social problems and create societal opportunities, involving diverse actors and knowledge sources. Through complex learning processes and actor interactions, SIs initiate new social practices and drive socio-ecological transformations. To this end, innovation policy needs to provide a functional infrastructure and integrate resources from business, civil society, research, and science.
The project aims to unlock this potential of SI by promoting, activating, scaling and mainstreaming SIs across the EU Missions. Through a series of interconnected measures, it also seeks to engage and advise funders, investors, social innovators, and R&I policy makers on how they can contribute to the Missions.
Outcomes
The anticipated project outcomes include:
- A Catalogue of Impact Pathways for integrating Sis into the Missions
- A Training and Scaling Lab for social innovators, support organizations, and private and public funders to harness the opportunities connected to the Missions
- An SI Funding and Investors’ Network to advise and engage funders in supporting, financing, and scaling powerful SIs, and
- A Community of Practice (CoP) to implement ongoing exchange and learning between EU Missions, funders, and social innovators, and to co-create a research agenda for valorizing SI in the Missions context.
Our role
DRIFT leads the work on identifying an evidence base of successful and auspicious SIs and co-creating suitable impact pathways and anchor points for integrating SIs into the EU Missions.
The DRIFT team also contributes to other project areas, including providing training to SI and business support organizations on harnessing SIs for the Missions and developing an SI Investment Lab for developing, testing and promoting innovative financial support instruments.
