Applications open for Humanitarian Innovation Programme (Norway)

Deadline: 28-Jun-24

Through the Humanitarian Innovation Programme (HIP Norway), Innovation Norway is looking for bold innovation projects that aim to improve humanitarian action, save lives, alleviate suffering, and sustain people’s dignity.

The Humanitarian Innovation Programme supports innovation partnerships between the humanitarian and private sector, both at the early stage and after successful piloting. They support innovation projects led by humanitarian organisations where the expertise of the private sector and the involvement of affected people is used to solve humanitarian challenges. They welcome humanitarian UN agencies and Norwegian humanitarian organisations (NGOs) to submit project proposals.

Objectives  

• HIP Norway is a grant and support mechanism, financed by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and administered by Innovation Norway.
• HIP Norway aims to strengthen efforts to:
  • Save lives, alleviate distress and safeguard human dignity in humanitarian crises.
  • Provide people in need with the necessary protection and assistance in line with humanitarian principles.
• To contribute to achieving the overall goal, HIP Norway will support projects that develop and scale innovative solutions that will contribute to smarter, better, more sustainable, and cost-effective emergency aid.

Focus Areas

• HIP Norway is looking for bold ideas that seek to improve resilience against natural disasters or improve humanitarian response in conflicts and disasters. The programme supports projects within one or more of the following focus areas:
  • Green humanitarian response: Efforts that contribute to more sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions within the humanitarian sector.
  • Health and sanitation: Efforts to ensure lifesaving health services and the provision of facilities and services for the maintenance of hygienic conditions and the safe disposal of human waste.
  • Protection: Efforts that contribute to protecting people from violence, abuse and violation of international law due to humanitarian crises. Applications focusing on protection from sexual and gender-based violence are encouraged.
  • Innovative finance: Innovative financing refers to a number of non-traditional mechanisms for raising additional funds for humanitarian and development assistance. This may be through innovations such as micro-contributions, impact bonds, public-private partnerships and market-based approaches/ business models.

Grant Categories          

• Innovation lab grant scheme
  • The Innovation lab grant scheme requires humanitarian organisations to employ the framework of innovative/ innovation-friendly procurement. Innovation Norway will provide guidance and workshops to support this process. The milestones that grant recipients will need to conduct as part of the Innovation Lab are:
    • Needs assessment: Gaining a thorough understanding of the humanitarian challenge the project is seeking to address, including engagement of affected people.
    • Market dialogue: An open dialogue with innovators and companies for inputs and discussions on approach and technology: does a suitable solution already exist? Or is there a need to develop something new?
    • Performance-based specifications: Informed by the needs assessment and market dialogue, an open, innovative and competitive procurement process should ask for function and performance rather than describing a final solution in detail. It should be open enough to allow for new and potentially unknown solutions to address the problem at hand.
    • Development/procurement: A formal process resulting in a development partnership with a private partner or procurement of an innovation / new solution.
• Scaling grant scheme
  • The Scaling grant scheme supports the uptake and scaling of solutions that have been successfully piloted and reached proof of concept in at least one humanitarian setting. Projects that have previously received support through the Innovation Lab will have an advantage in the competition for the Scaling grant scheme.
  • The Scaling grant scheme funds project that are either in transition to scale or that are looking to scale sustainably. When a project is in transition to scale, organisations can apply for support for the implementation of an innovative solution and the development and testing of different routes to scale. This opportunity is for projects that are rigging their innovations for a larger scale in the very near future.
  • Food security: Responses during and after a humanitarian crisis addressing issues of food availability, access, utilization, and stability.

Funding Information

• Applications to the Innovation lab scheme may range from NOK 4-6 million (or up to NOK 8 million for multiagency projects with three or more partnering organisations).
• Applications to the Scaling grant scheme may range from NOK 2-10 million.

Target Groups

• The target group(s) for the projects supported through the programme are people affected by humanitarian crises.
• Overall, HIP Norway is evaluated based on the number of innovation partnerships established, the number of new solutions developed, successful pilots in humanitarian contexts, new innovative solutions being used that have a direct impact on end users, the number of solutions that have contributed to smarter, better, more sustainable and/or more cost-efficient response, and the number of innovations that have been scaled up in a humanitarian context.

Who can apply?

• UN agencies with a humanitarian mandate.
• Norwegian humanitarian organisations with an international mandate (The organisation must be registered at the Brønnøysund Register and have both an office in Norway and a Norwegian board).
• Consortiums of multiple humanitarian organisations. In such collaborations, the main applicant has to come from category 1 or 2, and the other organisations can either come from these categories, or not, e.g., national NGOs etc.
• They encourage humanitarian organisations to collaborate on joint applications.
• HIP Norway mobilises and supports humanitarian-private partnerships. The humanitarian organisation/agency is the applicant and receiver of the grant.

For more information, visit Innovation Norway.