ESFA will be implementing the first of its projects within the Horizon Europe programme

In today’s context of rapid societal change, innovation in technology and business alone are not enough: new ideas and social innovation are necessary. The European Commission also supports this approach and has included social innovations in its policies. On January 2023, the “Change Hubs for Ecosystem Social Solutions” project, part of the Horizon Europe programme, started: The project seeks to promote the practical application of social innovations in the countries involved and foster the international exchange of good national practices.

The CHESS project will be implemented by a group of international partners including the European Social Fund Agency – ESFA (Lithuania), Euro-Mediterranean University – EMUNI (Slovenia), the social cooperative consulting company Project Ahead – PJA (Italy), the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas – CERTH (Greece), Dortmund University of Technology – TUDO (Germany), and two associated partners: The International Society for Professional Innovation Management – ISPIM (UK) and Social Innovation Exchange – SIX (UK).

In the past five years, various types of social studies have identified several important obstacles to much-needed social innovation, such as lack of funding, practical applicability, and qualified personnel, as well social innovators’ failures to share their expertise beyond their narrow field and with the wider ecosystem. Moreover, while social innovation tools abound, information about their effectiveness and applicability to different contexts is often lacking. The CHESS project of the Horizon Europe programme will address these challenges to social innovation throughout Europe.

The project partners will identify relevant social innovation solutions and actors at national level that can be engaged in their implementation, adapting the social innovation model to the context of each country, creating their own methodology, and measuring the results of the model’s operation. Information and practices will be exchanged among project parties observing, evaluating and improving working models. The goal is to turn the theoretical knowledge and practical information gained during the project into methodological material applicable to many contexts, to be shared through various communication channels and platforms. The established partnerships and acquired knowledge and international cooperation experiences will remain valuable even after the end of the project and will feed into a common European social innovation knowledge network.

As part of the CHESS project, ESFA will encourage the application of social innovations in the field of migrant integration, and the models and methodologies developed during the project will become part of the material of the National Competence Centre for Social Innovations.

The total value of the project is 353 410 EUR. The project will unfold from January 2023 to January 2025.