The overall objective of the project is to unlock the untapped potentials of social innovations (SIs) to boost the EU Missions by promoting, activating, scaling and mainstreaming SIs and by engaging and advising SI funders, investors, social innovators and R&I policymakers at European, national and local level through a series of interconnected measures. To attain this objective, we will address four Key Actions: 1. Identify an evidence base of successful and - regarding the EU Missions - auspicious SIs and co-create suitable impact pathways and anchor points for the integration of SIs in future calls and topics of the EU Missions. 2. Provide training and advice through our Training and Scaling Lab about the opportunities provided by the EU Missions, by upgrading the skills of social innovators and support organisations for successful scaling and participation in calls of the EU and of private and public funders dealing with mission related themes. 3. Create a SI Funding and Investors’ Network to advise and engage private and public funding authorities in supporting, financing and scaling powerful SIs for the EU Missions’ purposes and by expanding the range of financial instruments with the help of a SI Investment Lab. 4. Establish a Community of Practice (CoP) to implement regular exchange and learning between EU Missions, the SI Funders and Investors’ Network and social innovators to meet demand and supply and to co-create a Research Agenda to make the best use of SI for the EU Missions. The Key Exploitable Results (KERs) of the project are a Catalogue of SI impact pathways (KER-1); Operational Training and Scaling Lab (KER-2); 30 credible scaling plans (KER-3); a committed funding network to support EU Missions established (KER-4); one financial Framework Partnership Agreement for a networked catalytic fund prepared (KER-5); A co-designed research agenda (KER-6) and >200 organisations engage in exchange and dialogue (KER-6).

CORE12.01 aspires to significantly enhance the entrepreneurial competence of 30 European deep tech researchers and 60 ecosystem actors, facilitating breakthrough climate solutions. The participants will be selected as Innovation Fellows (IFs) through an Open Call into the Responsive Ecosystem Fellowship Programme (REFP), a 25-hour modular program that combines training, mentorship, and a KPI-driven practical approach. By integrating a quadruple-helix model that unites academia, industry, government, and civil society, CORE12.01 draws on each sector's expertise to develop tailored methodologies and fosters deeper connections within and between innovation ecosystems, empowering collaborations, accelerating market entry, and improving business survival rates. Through the development and use of the Responsive Ecosystem Toolbox (RET) and the Responsive Innovation Monitoring Tool (RIM), IFs will acquire essential entrepreneurial skills, including market analysis, business modeling, stakeholder engagement, and fundraising, while actively participating in networking activities. The REFP’s 5 training modules will support 30 IFs in achieving concrete commercialization milestones with masterplans, increasing their entrepreneurial competence by 30-50%, and addressing pressing societal needs via their solutions. Ensuring diverse participation with 25% female and 35% coming from Emerging/Moderate Innovator Countries, CORE12.01 seeks to bridge the gender gap in leading roles in the climate-tech innovation landscape, building transnational collaboration between siloed and networked researchers The successful implementation of CORE12.01 will showcase the establishment of a more interconnected, resilient, and impact-driven innovation ecosystem across Europe, facilitating research-industry collaborations to support the transition to a zero-carbon society.

Co-creation practice – and co-creation research – are at a crossroads: More than ever, initiatives to boost innovation through collaboration among diverse actors are flourishing across Europe. Yet, this mainstreaming poses new challenges to better understand “co-creation processes and outcomes under various cultural, societal and regulatory backgrounds to allow better-targeted policy support” (SwafS-13-17). To date, no systematic studies exist that detail how co-creation instruments operate under different socio-cultural conditions, i.e. if “best practices” will be effective elsewhere or if the resulting products and services are compatible with new markets. SCALINGS addresses the challenge of mainstreaming co-creation across a diverse Europe head-on: In the first ever rigorous comparative study, we will investigate the implementation, uptake, and outcomes of three co-creation instruments (public procurement of innovation, co-creation facilities, and living labs) in two technical domains (robotics and urban energy) across 10 countries. Using comparative case studies and coordinated cross-country experiments, we explore if and how these instruments can be generalized, transferred, or scaled up to new socio-cultural, economic, or institutional conditions to unleash their innovative power. Based on this unique data set, we will develop two new transformative frameworks – “situated co-creation” and “socially robust scaling” – to guide the wider dissemination of co-creation. We will synthesize our findings into an “EU Policy Roadmap” to support ongoing EU innovation policy efforts. Empirically, SCALINGS is closely integrated with over two dozen European co-creation initiatives that deal with cross-cultural transferability on a daily basis. Together with these partners, we will co-create enhanced practices that feed directly back into their work and strategy. Finally, we will launch a training program (boot camp) on co-creation in diverse settings for other EU consortia.

Developing an enabling environment for social innovation that links actions across the whole field and supports the full exploitation of their potential is vital to addressing societal challenges both in Europe and globally. While there is increasing interest for social innovation as a means of addressing societal challenges, there is also considerable variation in the extent to which different countries and regions have embraced social innovation. There are many research and policy projects and incubation and acceleration programmes with valuable outcomes but these are still largely disconnected. Thus, the overarching aim of this project is to create a ‘network of networks’ of social innovation actors. This Social Innovation Community (SIC) will identify, engage and connect actors including researchers, social innovators, citizens, policy-makers, as well as intermediaries, businesses, civil society organisations and public sector employees. Through our cross-cutting Work Packages, we will deliver engagement, research, experimentation, learning and policy activities that engage with and support each of the networks. We will ensure that our cross-cutting activities are complementary and build on each other’s work, rather than operating in silos. As such, this SIC aims to deepen and strengthen existing networks, forge new connections between networks, and create new links to actors and networks which hitherto have not been included in the field of social innovation. The aims of such a community are to generate new social innovations, develop and scale up successful ideas to share and spread knowledge more effectively in order to improve research, practice and policy-making. By creating an enabling environment for social innovation, the project will improve the overall framework conditions for social innovation in Europe. This in turn will support the creation of opportunities for growth and for overcoming the current social and economic crisis affecting much of Europe.