Social Innovation Academy 2.0 Erasmus Project

Project Title

Social Innovation Academy 2.0

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Open and distance learning; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Social entrepreneurship / social innovation

Project Summary

Social Innovation Academy 2.0 is based on the success of E+ SOCIA project that developed and tested a concept of the first European, fully online programme focusing exclusively on social innovation. Social Innovation Academy 2.0 aims to take the developed concept to a whole new level of content, delivery and reach, and make the Academy 2.0 the reference in social innovation training in Europe.

What is social innovation? In short, any innovation that is social in its ends or in its means, or simply any working, innovative solution to help address a pressing societal challenge e.g. climate change, social exclusion, mobility or health challenges. It has been gaining momentum around the globe.

Social innovation, often represented as a six-stage process supported by a set of tools, can be learned. However, the current VET offer in this field remains far below what (aspiring) social innovators need.

Social Innovation Academy 2.0 intends to change this. The proposed strategic partnership led by Limitless brings together partners of the highest caliber: Impact Hub, representing the largest network of impact change-makers in the world, Sinnergiak Social Innovation (UPV/EHU), one of the top social innovation academic and VET organisations in Europe and the co-founder of SIC (Social Innovation Community), and We4You with whom we have successfully collaborated in SOCIA.

Project objectives and related activities:
– Bring in expert co-creators through developing a methodology for a true learning content co-creation, launching an international call for experts and selecting the co-creators based on quality (IO1)
– Co-create compelling social innovation learning materials with onboarded experts, engaging in a quality publication pipeline (IO2)
– Extend the training channels and accessibility by short inspiring ‘teaser’ videos on social innovation, also adapted to hearing or visually impaired (IO3)
– Develop and test the methodology, tools and train-the-trainer package for a complementary, introductory offline training in social innovation, open to interested VET organisations, designed as an optional intro to more extensive online training (IO4)
– Improve training reach and learning experience, working closely with experts in web development, graphic design, SEO editing, to increase the content reach and user experience (IO5)
– Grow, diversify, analyse the needs of and actively engage an international online community (IO6)
– Bring in more people to the Academy 2.0 through local activities, multiplier events and ambitious dissemination.

Direct target audience includes (aspiring) leaders in the social, private and public sectors, as well as (aspiring) social entrepreneurs. Indirect target audience includes VET organisations, innovation intermediaries and impact investors. Other audiences include social innovation expert co-creators (from academics, to researchers, to practitioners), policymakers and even youth.

We will actively involve 610-910 participants in project activities. In addition, thousands of people will be reached through dissemination activities.

Social Innovation Academy 2.0 is targeting the following core impacts across different levels:
1. Build upon the success of SOCIA to harness the power of co-creation and leverage the social innovation expertise from around the globe to train even more future social innovators even more effectively.
2. Provide people willing to solve pressing societal challenges with necessary competences, skills, methods and tools they need to develop and implement social innovations to tackle current issues such as climate change, refugee crisis, growing social disparities and exclusion. This will encourage individual empowerment, social entrepreneurship, citizen engagement, the development of social and civic competences.
3. As a result, strengthen the European society’s own abilities to ensure the wellbeing of all its members, reducing disparities and avoiding marginalisation, in effect increasing Europe’s competitiveness through innovation.

Partners will get the opportunity to increase their own knowledge and competences, develop new contacts and scale their social innovation and VET impact in terms of numbers and geography. Together, the strategic partnership will foster innovation excellence and internationalisation, realise synergies in complementary expertise (online vs offline, content co-creation vs. dissemination, community-based approaches vs. global network, teaching vs. research vs. technological learning solutions etc.), co-organising activities (open calls, co-creation process, curriculum testing etc.), increasing access to target audience (from single country to global network, from business to public to third sector audiences), increasing European reach of communication and dissemination activities, sharing resources, acting as mentors for each other.

Project Website

http://www.socialinnovationacademy.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 207577,94 Eur

Project Coordinator

LIMITLESS SARL & Country: LU

Project Partners

• UNIVERSIDAD DEL PAIS VASCO/ EUSKAL HERRIKO UNIBERTSITATEA
• We4You, Zavod za izobrazevanje
• Impact HUB Kft.