With support from the European Commission, social innovation is currently well embedded in policy agendas and funding streams. Yet social innovation’s full potential remains untapped with several interconnected barriers: firstly, the lack of finance, scaling models, and qualified personnel and lack of application; secondly, social innovators act in silos and are not integrated into the wider innovation ecosystem; finally, social innovation toolkits need to be tested and validated in terms of their effectiveness. To tackle these challenges, the overarching aim of the CHESS Project is to design, implement and test a ´Social Innovation (SI) in Action Manual´ in four locally specific contexts, around four distinct use cases which address some of Europe´s most complex and systemic societal challenges. Through three cycles of testing, iterating and improving, the Consortium created a robust, tested SI Manual with rich information on learnings from a local context, while facilitating and enhancing the knowledge transfer and building capacities through workshops and curated ´learning by doing. ´
The specific objectives of CHESS are:
• O1 - Integrate social innovation conceptual and practice models to address concrete and locally palpable societal challenges, mobilising a broad range of partners, means of financing, methodologies and relevant information in ways that learning happens in parallel to action.
• O2 - Ensure the interlinking and connection of SI actors with broader innovation ecosystems at local and European levels. Whilst it is important to spend time with like-minded people when a new field of practice is establishing itself, we now need to do more to make sure social innovation can harness the power of diversity and maximise the value of innovation to all.
• O3 - Test and further develop existing innovation approaches and toolkits, focusing on lessons learned from their applications in tackling societal challenges and achieving financial sustainability. The goal here is to create a practical and easily accessible resource that takes into consideration business aspects while acknowledging the systemic nature of the challenges and the need to use strategic foresight.
