Planning of a social prize competition aiming at creating new and radical solutions for elderly

Purpose and goal

The project has made it possible for a successful application process, both in terms our own work and in the form of external activities with problem owners and citizens (selection of customers/users). We believe we have achieved the goals of the project and that we have found a form of conduct of the social prize competition. When we started the work, a number of assumptions were made, of which some remains valid while others were modified or redefined. This planning project has helped to increase the quality and relevance of the scope and deployment of the competition.

Results and expected effects

The expected result is to both get our application for project funding granted and that innovation competition in itself will be a success. We expect the competition to result in a number of innovations that can be commercialized. Another concrete effect is to contribute to a better understanding across the entire innovation system in Sweden about what makes open innovation competitions work well, especially addressing the significant communication challenges of an open innovation social prize competition.

Approach and implementation

The planning project began with comprehensive desktop research where different innovation competitions in Sweden and abroad were studied. This included the NESTA report ´BCG Evaluation´ which was used as a reference and for inspiration. Interviews and discussions with representatives of the municipality and county council were conducted. A workshop with 30 people aged 20-85 years was conducted to obtain citizens´ views on the matter. Based on the knowledge gained, the final application was developed in collaboration with the Innovation Unit Scandinavia.