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).

Energy-SHIFTS “Energy Social sciences & Humanities Innovation Forum Targeting the SET-Plan” will contribute to a European Energy Union that places societal needs centrally, by further developing Europe’s leadership in using and applying energy-related Social Sciences and Humanities (energy-SSH). Our consortium brings together 4 leading interdisciplinary research institutes with 3 highly respected policy, industry and communications organisations from across the energy-SSH field, to create an innovative and inclusive Forum. Our partners have significant energy-SSH H2020 project experience, direct working links with the EU’s Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) communities, extensive networks in the energy domain, and represent excellent coverage across SSH disciplines and across Europe. These will enable us to maximise the impact of our Forum delivery within an intensive 2-year project. Energy-SHIFTS activities will target over 10,000 stakeholders and begin with scoping activities including: accessible guides to SSH in EU policy; workshops on SSH priority themes; online policyworker and researcher databases. We will build on this scoping work to implement: 4 Working Groups across SET-Plan themes; a Policy Fellowship scheme; an Early-Stage Researcher programme; masterclasses for policy, NGO, STEM, and media audiences; 4 online citizen debates; and a pan-European conference. Our consortium will bring their considerable expertise in research-policy dialogue to these activities. Our core activities will both provide immediate insights for the short-term directions of EU energy policy as well as foundations for longer-term mechanisms that will enable evidence-based energy-SSH insights to reach the ‘policy front line’. As a central body bringing SSH communities together, we will work to directly inform future FP9 and SET-Plan priorities. Energy-SHIFTS will significantly enhance the policy impact of energy-SSH, and accelerate shifts to low-carbon energy systems.

BIONEXT will develop knowledge, tools, and guidance for mainstreaming biodiversity into policy making and provide concrete options on how to initiate, accelerate and upscale biodiversity relevant transformative change in society. It will deliver an innovative Nexus Modelling Framework that will integrate scenarios and pathways in a co-production process with stakeholders, while modelling interlinkages between biodiversity, water, food, energy, transport, climate, and health, and enabling simulation of the impacts of indirect and direct drivers on biodiversity. Through its database of transformative change cases, BIONEXT will involve policy- and decision-makers and allows them to explore the concept of just transformative change. Plausible futures and desirable, nature-positive visions for Europe and multiple just transition pathways will be co-created in workshops and focus groups taking place in various cities around Europe. With the involvement of diverse stakeholders, the BIONEXT Pathways App will be delivered as a novel decision support tool that allows users to explore transformational building blocks, for formulating policies and implementation pathways for the biodiversity nexus. The results will contribute to science brokerage, capacity building and networking to IPBES, EU policymakers, and civil society.

UrbanA takes up the challenge of synthesizing and brokering the knowledge and experience generated in EU-funded projects, many of which have identified interventions that address grand societal challenges, of which urban inequalities and social exclusion across different contexts. In this way, UrbanA will support city-makers – including researchers, policymakers and practitioners – in transforming European cities into inclusive and sustainable urban and peri-urban environments. UrbanA will do so through a transdisciplinary Urban Arena for Sustainable and Equitable Solutions (established in WP2). By co-creatively mapping urban sustainability interventions (WP3), assessing their potential to improve urban social equity and inclusion (WP4) and identifying potential avenues and agents by which such interventions could be transferred to more widespread governance contexts (WP5), UrbanA will develop actionable and actor specific solutions (WP6), which will be disseminated to key local and European actors (WP7).