On 10 August, the European Commission is announcing the 21 finalists in this year’s European Social Innovation Competition – the challenge prize.

The shortlisted finalists are all social innovation projects with exciting visions of how to tackle this year’s challenge: “the future of living innovation for affordable and sustainable housing districts”. The theme fulfils the objectives of the New European Bauhaus movement: to re-invent our current way of living to meet the goals of the European Green Deal.

The competition is open to social innovators from EU Member States and countries associated to Horizon Europe. The jury members evaluated all social innovation applications considering the following criteria:

  • Degree of Innovation – the degree to which any new product, service or model is new for its given context in connection to the challenge of the competition. The idea must be new and innovative within its given socio-economic and geographical context;
  • Impact – the potential of the proposal to tackle the competition challenge. The applicant must demonstrate how the proposed solution will contribute to solving the challenge;
  • Sustainability– the financial and environmental sustainability of the proposal;
  • Scalability and replicability – the idea’s potential to scale and be replicated, be it at regional, national, European or global level.

The finalists are:

  • Aristeia SC (France)
  • Buddy Service Iberia SL (Spain)
  • ClimaCare, z.s. (Czech Republic)
  • Die HausWirtschaft e.Gen. (Austria)
  • EET – Efficient Energy Technology GMBH (Austria)
  • Futnut Ltd (Ireland)
  • Human Maple S.r.l.s. (Italy)
  • IZ Renewable Luxury SRL (Italy)
  • La Borda SCCL (Spain)
  • La Titaranya SCCL (Spain)
  • Mahdi Elahi and Moujan Mahdian (Belgium)
  • Mekado Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH (Germany)
  • Nexter s.r.l. (Italy)
  • Politecnico Di Milano / Department Of Design (application: OCn, Italy)
  • Politecnico Di Milano / Department Of Design (application SSN, Italy)
  • Re Learn (Italy)
  • Sostre Civic SCCL (Spain)
  • Stichting Energy Challenges (Netherlands)
  • Toprak Akilli Cephe Sistemleri Muhendislik LTD STI (Turkey)
  • Une Famille Un Toit 44 (France)
  • Universita Degli Studi Di Torino (Italy)

What happens next?

The finalists will be invited to submit a full proposal of a maximum of 15 pages where they will further describe and defend their applications. The deadline to submit their full proposals is open until 21 September.

The Judges will then select the three winners, each of whom will receive €50.000. The European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA), which is managing the Prize, will invite all of the finalists to attend the Award Ceremony in the first trimester of 2023 along with the winner of the 2022 Impact Prize.

More about the European Social Innovation Competition

This tenth edition of the European Social Innovation Competition (EUSIC) is supported by the European Innovation Council (EIC) under Horizon Europe.

The European Social Innovation Competition aims at stimulating the potential of social innovation to provide solutions to societal challenges that we face and to foster sustainable and inclusive growth in Europe. It will directly support ideas best illustrating this rationale. It will engage people, businesses and start-ups in a large range of sectors, as well as universities, engineering schools and civil society organisations thereby creating new connections, sources of sustainable growth and meaningful job opportunities.

The prize attracts a great number of applicants each year. Past editions topics were the following: Skills for tomorrow – Shaping a green and digital future (2021), Reimagine Fashion (2020), Challenging Plastic Waste (2019), Re:think Local (2018), Equality Rebooted (2017), Integrated Futures (2016), New Ways to Grow (2015), The Job Challenge (2014), and New forms of work (2013).

EUSIC is one of the four European Innovation Council Prizes granted under Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation framework programme. While the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA° manages the prize, independent experts assess the applications.

Source: European Innovation Council I News (https://bit.ly/3AuRHn3)