Innovation process for project submissions

We promote social innovation as a collective learning and experience process. The exchange between research, implementation and our facilitation partners from the participating cities is very important. 2024-2025 we work in and with the City of Zurich and individual service departments.

Our innovation process for project submissions consists of six stages.

Important: In order to participate in the Open Call, you must attend at least one event related to the challenges. All other information about the open call can be found on jointcreate or in our FAQ.

1. Open Call

An open call with the Challenge Statement all other necessary informations for project applications is published on the co-creation platform Jointcreate.

2. Challenge Accepted

The Challenge Accepted Workshops are part of the Challenge Stage, an important first phase in every call for proposals. In the Challenge Stage, we bring everyone together and allow different perspectives on challenges and possible solutions to emerge. The workshops work on their own, but we make sure that the results from one format can be used as input for the next format.

All interested parties who would like to prepare for a submission are invited to the "Challenge Accepted" workshops. During the workshop, interdisciplinary teams are formed and, with the support of topic experts, radical solution approaches are developed, further processed and honed for submission. Members of innovation teams must take part in at least one of several workshops in order to submit a project.

3. Apply

Innovation teams create a profile on Jointcreate and submit a project proposal.

4. Funding Decision

When the formal criteria are met, interviews are conducted with the project teams. The jury then reviews the project ideas and decides which projects receive funding.

5. Develop & Prototype

Radical ideas are developed, prototyped and tested. We support the teams with knowledge and mainstreaming expertise, our networks and workshops, which help to further develop project ideas.

6. Recap

Innovation teams present their progress (outputs and outcomes) at the annual FUS conference and share experiences. (more information will follow)
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