Semi-Finalists Announced for the European Social Innovation Competition
Thirty semi-finalists have been announced in this year’s European Social Innovation Competition. The announcement was made by the European Commission and the European Innovation Council and SME Executive Agency (EISMEA).
In total, the competition received 565 applications – from this high number, the judging panel selected 30 projects from 17 countries. These projects will be semi-finalists for this year’s competition Skills for Tomorrow – Shaping a green and digital future.
In line with this year’s theme, the projects are all based in social innovation, each with ideas on how to develop the necessary skills for Europe’s green and digital future. They are all early-stage projects, meaning they will receive support from the competition’s coaches to turn their ideas into tangible solutions and concepts.
Coaches who will support the semi-finalists consist of experienced social innovators, who will provide one-to-one mentoring. In addition, they will receive an online package with resources to develop their projects, including two multi-day training events delivered by the competition’s social innovation academies.
During this time, they will all prepare their extensive Development Plans for the judging panel. With this, they hope to gain a spot among the 10 finalists and ultimately one of three winning projects. Winners will be each awarded EUR 50,000.
Director of EISMEA, Jean-David Malo said:
“With their eyes firmly on the ultimate goal of a more sustainable, greener and increasingly digital future for Europe, the participants in this year’s Competition took up the Challenge and produced some exciting ideas for how to meet our future skills needs. The Judging Panel had a difficult task, but have selected the 30 most innovative and impactful projects to move forward to the next phase of the Competition.”
Learn more about the European Social Innovation Competition and meet its 30 semi-finalists.
