Open Call for Social Innovators: Supporting Ventures in Leading Industry

Deadline: 28-Sep-23

Are you a member of the civil society (individual or an organisation) operating in key industrial value chains of food, water & nutrients, textiles and plastics & packaging? Do you think you have a tech-driven solution to achieve social impact and systemic change across industry that you are craving for? EU-funded project SoTecIn Factory launched its first round of Open Calls for Social Innovators for its 3.3M EUR programme supporting mission-driven social innovation ventures in leading industry towards low-carbon and circular economy transition through sustainable solutions utilising higher R circular strategies.

To achieve the outcomes, innovators are invited to address at least one of the challenges previously selected or propose a new challenge to the specific missions. For this contest, a challenge is defined as a critical sustainability problem in the context of circular economy and its 7 R’s (Refuse, Rethink, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Refurbish, Remanufacture). As such, innovators need to be able to apply with a dedicated solution approach to the challenge by using social innovation and technologies.

The award of innovators will be based on a transparent process implemented specifically in this open call. The solutions offered by the social innovators, and the broader business models they are incorporated into, need to be desirable, feasible and viable, both in relation to their commercial and social impact potential.

Challenges

• South-West (Portugal, Spain, Southern France)
  • Developing a tool that contributes to the sustainability analysis of the urban food systems via food streams monitoring.
  • Developing a tool to help upcycle geographically distributed food surplus.
• South-East (Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Serbia, Ukraine)
  • Producing a solution for the organic waste valorisation.
  • Building digitized and scalable midstream infrastructure for small-chain fresh food supply.
• North-East (Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia)
  • Developing an online measurement tool/quality assurance system to help rate/compare online food marketplaces, tools, and applications.
  • Developing tools to improve and increase farmers online visibility to potential customers.
  • Developing a solution that supports the preordering and sale of seasonal products in close surroundings.
• East (Turkey, Armenia, Georgia)
  • Developing a solution to facilitate better understanding of crop-based carbon emissions.
  • Designing and encouraging the adoption of novel meat free alternatives.
• North-West (Netherlands, Northern France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland)
  • Developing data-driven approaches to enable circular product strategies.
• Centre-South (Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Malta)
  • Developing sustainable finishing processes for high-performing fabrics and/ or analytical techniques to enable fabric traceability.
  • Developing a verification tool for environmentally friendly claims made by textile suppliers.
  • Enabling the footwear industry to increase the use of sustainable materials and processes via an innovative digital tool.
  • Developing a solution for the collection of textiles suppliers’ information and the assessment of the sustainability-related supplier risk.
  • Retaining product performance and longevity in the move towards less complex, biobased, and biodegradable materials.
  • Increasing the access to and affordability of circular services and reverse logistics.
• Centre-North (Germany, Denmark, Austria, Sweden, Finland)
  • Communicating the comprehensive sustainability impacts of recycled products to customers.
  • Designing a robust take-back system for paint packaging.
  • Developing reusable smart packaging for cosmetic products and beauty care industry
  • Producing a tracking solution for business models with reusable packaging in the food (e.g., cups/plates) and cosmetics (e.g., shampoo bottle/soap dispenser) industries.
  • Reducing plastic consumption in packaging materials (shrink wrap, trays/multi-packs, etc.) via environmentally friendly solutions.

Funding Information

• The financial support to third parties within the So will be in the form of a grant awarded (lump sum). During the programme, each selected third-party will have access to the following funds to deploy their projects.
  • Phase 1: up to €15.000 against deliverables approved by the consortium partners and achieved milestones; start (5,000 Eur), mid (5,000 Eur) and end of 7-months (5,000 Eur);
  • Phase 2: if selected to advance to Phase 2, the beneficiary will be funded with up to €85.000 against deliverables approved by the consortium partners and achieved milestones; being 50% paid at the end of the 1st month and 50% at the end of the demonstration project. This phase will last 5 months.

Benefits

The benefits for your sustainable solution:

• Pre-market technological demonstration
  • Expert guidance for the deployment of solutions in the market, including fundraising and IP strategy development support.
• Capacity-building & circular business support
  • Workshops, 1-to-1 sessions and individual mentoring from the SoTecIn Factory partner consortia and other circularity experts, focused on improving knowledge, skills and expertise of entrepreneurs in topics spanning business model innovation, circular economy, impact strategy building, novel governance models and a

Outcomes

Expected project outcomes are:

• Innovations that combine technological and social innovation and support industry in their transition and the achievement of EU’s priorities.
• A new generation of technologically savvy social entrepreneurs.
• New business models capitalising on new partnerships between industry and society.
• Support for 25 social entrepreneurs with funding and light capacity building regarding business models, fund-raising and exploitation 15 mission-oriented pre-market demonstration projects.
• Long-term impact for increased autonomy in key strategic value chains for a resilient industry.

Eligibility Criteria

• Target Applicants
  • Applicants can be individuals and organizations.
  • Individuals should be part of a legal entity with a valid VAT at the time of the contracting phase.
  • Organizations should have a valid VAT or company registration number at the time of the contracting phase.
  • Consortium are eligible for this call.
  • Single organizations are eligible for this call.
  • All entities must be eligible to work in the EU or Horizon Europe associated Member State
• Type of Applications Eligible in the Open Call
  • All the project proposals need to clearly describe a prototype solution and the social impact. With the aim of engaging and deploying top-down experiments, SoTecIn Factory has defined the following possible participation approach for applicants:
    • Challenge (Top-Down Approach): Driven by the value chain challenges proposed by industrial and technological companies in the open call for challenge owners, applicants will propose solutions that address specific value chain challenges. Innovators will have the chance to select at least one challenge in a list of 21 challenges available.
    • Innovate (bottom-up Approach): The initiative relies entirely on applicants, who have a particular social innovation concept with capacity to be adopted by industry players but does not fit a specific challenge defined in SoTecIn Factory.
    • Two-in-one [innovator with challenge proponent]: participation track led by a consortium, meaning that the applicant tech-savvy innovator will apply together with their own value chain challenge proponent proposing a joint solution that follows a specific market need. Even being part of the consortia, challenge proponents, do not receive funding for their participation, the grant is 100% dedicated to the tech-savvy innovator to develop and deploy its demonstrator.
  • Overall, the goal is to develop and implement projects combining technological and social innovation to support overcoming the circular challenges related to one or more value chains. Indeed, SoTecIn Factory programme will be continuously monitored by the core consortium of the project to facilitate matchmaking and thus give place to meaningful and impactful demonstrations.

For more information, visit SoTecIn Factory.