This the offer within the Energy Agency, Formas and Vinnova's joint effort Impact Innovation is linked to the program Water Wise Societies.
The intention of the offer is to give stakeholder groups the opportunity to plan and start long-term work with a complex social challenge to contribute to one or more of Water Wise Societis's sub-goals being met. It can be about both geographical and thematic challenges.
Funds to finance continuation projects will be available after completion of project.
Contribute to the fulfillment of the mission "Sustainable water for all by 2050".
Water Wise Societies is one of five programme within Impact Innovation. The program's mission means that in 2050, water is available in the right quantities and qualities for people, the environment, business and society in general to flourish, despite a changing climate. Sweden is the world's leading business partner for innovative water-related solutions.
The subgoal of the program is:
- Water Resilient Communities 2035
Communities are built and managed in harmony with water and are resilient to climate change and crises. Entire watersheds are considered to store water in the landscape, replenish groundwater levels, and prevent flooding. A sustainable perspective on water is applied in cities through multifunctional blue-green infrastructure. Policy and governance supports and guides system and behavioral changes that make water management more sustainable and enable the use of alternative water sources of appropriate quality. - Prosperous Lakes and Watercourses 2035
Lakes and waterways are prosperous, protected and future-proofed where sources of pollution are identified and minimized. Conditions exist for groundwater and surface water to achieve good status in accordance with the framework directive for water. The entire catchment area is observed to ensure protection of surface water and groundwater and that urban development and business are not restricted. - Access to water 2035
Everyone has access to sufficient water of the right quality and quantity to ensure thriving ecosystems, safe drinking water, food and energy production, and competitive business. Water budgets are established and enable fair distribution and fair prioritization of water resources. System changes from linear to circular, resource-efficient water and resource flows are a prerequisite for ensuring sustainable water for all. - Wise use of water 2035
All parts of society use water wisely, consuming only the quantity and quality of water they need. Resources in water are reused in safe circular systems. Wastewater and process water resources are reused to help reduce the climate footprint, secure food production and increase the resilience of society and industry. Citizens are conscious consumers of water services and understand the importance and value of water.
The mission and interim goals in Water Wise Societies are part of the major change that needs to be made in order for us to reach a sustainable society. The transition affects the whole society; our cities, our welfare, our value chains and consumption patterns. Individual efforts are not enough, but comprehensive changes are required at all different levels, of social and technical systems throughout society: so-called system innovation.
In order to make the transition happen, experience, expertise and cutting-edge skills are needed from all corners of society and with multiple perspectives. It's about breaking silos and letting actors who otherwise don't meet discuss problems and solutions. We believe that new collaborations and new ways of working are keys to innovation and sustainable solutions.
Establish long-term stakeholder groups
Our hypothesis is that stakeholder groups form an important basis for the continued work at Water Wise Societies.
The intention of the effort is that the actor groups that are financed should be able to be further developed through future program efforts.
- It can be about investments where the formation or development of long-term stakeholder groups is at the center. Such stakeholder groups address complex challenges over time and contribute to the creation or introduction of new solutions as needs and opportunities are identified.
- It can also be a continuation project where actors in broad cooperation want to develop one or more specific solutions that can contribute to system change.
Both new and existing groupings and structures can contribute. However, existing initiatives need to consider whether new actors should be included in order to contribute to the selected societal challenge.
The challenges addressed must be relevant in a Swedish context. The projects must differ from already existing investments in the area, also internationally.
During the project period, the program office will guide the stakeholder groups in relation to Water Wise Societies's mission and long-term objective. Project will be support in exploring selected challenge and identifying possible solutions at system level. Guidance will also be offered regarding potential continuation projects. Funded actors will gather for dialogue and joint workshops.
Documentation on continuation projects
The projects that are financed must jointly contribute to the transition towards Water Wise Societies's intermediate goals. Therefore, funded project must produce the following documents to be reported in the final report:
- An analysis of the complex challenge that you have chosen to work with, as well as how this contributes to the transition towards the mission and interim goals for Water Wise Societies.
- A description of the desired future situation and a hypothesis about which system changes are needed to get there. It includes:
- a system analysis of opportunities and obstacles for the challenge
- future images for selected challenge
- a mapping of actors that are relevant to the challenge - A formulated proposal for next steps. What kind of follow-up project is needed?
- What activities need to be carried out to address the identified challenge
- What solutions need to be developed?
- Which stakeholder groups need to be formed or developed?
The project documents will form the basis for future investments within Water Wise Societies.
You can define continuation projects yourself. For example, it could be:
- Test beds
- Policy Lab
- System Demonstrators
- Customer network
- Geographic clusters
- Center of Competence
- Research, development and innovation projects to bring about new solutions through a systems approach
- Innovation competitions
- Mobility project
What does project need to consider?
The importance of a systems perspective
Clear problems with a clear solution are not the focus of the call for proposals. They must deal with challenges that may be difficult to grasp, that are changing over time, incompletely described or visibly self-contradictory. It is therefore important to have a system perspective, that is to look at the whole and not just the parts and downpipes but its interconnections. The system perspective is a prerequisite for social impact.
Within this call for proposals we have chosen to start from a system model that consists of five dimensions of change that, as a rule, need to be explored for system innovation to be possible.
The five dimensions are:
- new technical solutions
- functioning business or value models
- supporting infrastructure and production systems
- enabling policy and regulations
- permissive culture and values
We want project to identify a challenge that either requires profound change within specific system dimensions or gradual movements within several dimensions.
We know from previous investments that collaboration projects that have a clear system perspective early on have an easier time scaling up developed solutions at a later stage and thus contribute to system change.
The importance of foresight
To be able to make the courageous decisions required for system change, we need tools that can help us understand what lies ahead - we need to get better at understanding the future. With the help of foresight, the projects in this call for proposals can make better strategic decisions and be prepared for different possible events in the future, and how to deal with them. Based on the challenges that the projects identify as most important for the change we are facing, the projects must select areas where they create future images or future scenarios. These can, for example, concern changed behaviour, new business models or new services and technologies.
The importance of active participation, user involvement and policy development
To be able to influence the entirety of a system, actors who have different perspectives and who work in different sectors, industries and parts of the value chain need to be involved. The actors need to participate actively with both powers and responsibilities. Not only the creators and enablers are needed, but also users must be involved early. This is to be sure that the right solutions are developed, but also to create sustainable financing models over time and management structures for the solutions. In this way, they can be scaled up, spread and utilized for maximum effect in the system.
In addition, active work is required to remove any obstacles to the introduction of the solutions with the help of policy development to, for example, adapt laws and regulations. This means that it is important to involve, for example, system administrators and developers, problem owners, suppliers and users already in the formulation of the challenge. By user is meant customers or users.
The importance of having internationalisation as a starting point
In order to contribute to Water Wise Societies's interim goals, the projects need to have an international perspective. Solutions or contexts can exist internationally, or your future new solutions can create international interest or competitiveness and connect with international actors. The projects therefore need to work with an international perspective and an active monitoring of the world around them.
The importance of sustainable system change
Impact Innovation will contribute to global competitiveness through transformation for sustainable development. Through our efforts, we contribute to the global commitment to reach the goals in Agenda 2030.
In order to achieve sustainable system change, it is important that project in the design of new solutions handle goal conflicts and minimize the risk of unintended negative effects.
One aspect that Impact Innovation follows up and assesses is whether both women and men equally share in the contribution, participate in and have influence over the project, see section 7 and criterion for Actors.
Another aspect involves analyzing and deciding whether there are gender aspects that are relevant to the project's problem area, solutions and utilization. This question is mandatory for all applicant and can be found under the heading " Project tasks". In this call for proposals the question is the basis for assessment, see section 7 and criterion for Potential.
Equal innovation - what it means for you who seek funding from us