Our first newsletter is here!
We’ve been busy – here’s what we’ve been building together.
We are excited to share updates from the Social Innovation Mission Facility (SIMF), a Horizon Europe project running from 2025–2029 and coordinated by the Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI, Vienna).
Together, we are working to unlock the full potential of social innovation to support the five EU Missions: climate adaptation, cancer, healthy oceans, climate-neutral cities, and soil health. Our shared ambition is to help social innovation become a stronger, more systematic driver of transformative change across Europe.
Introducing the SI Mission Facility
In a strong and diverse consortium of in total 10 organisations from 9 EU countries and the UK, we bring together expertise from research, practice, policy, and investment ecosystems. Our main partners include, among others:
- Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI)
- Technical University Dortmund (TUDO)
- DRIFT – Dutch Research Institute for Transitions
- Impact Hub Network
- EdelGive Foundation / SIX
- Portugal Social Innovation (PSI)
Together, we are building bridges between social innovators, policymakers, funders, and researchers to strengthen scaling pathways and impact across Europe.
First Outputs
We are proud to highlight our latest project outputs and knowledge products, which are already helping to shape the evidence base for social innovation in support of the EU Missions.
- Publication D1.1 – Social Innovations in Support of the EU Missions (2025)
This foundational report maps how social innovation contributes to EU Mission goals and identifies key conditions for scaling impact across different mission areas. - Early knowledge & communication outputs
We are developing and sharing accessible resources under our “thematic areas”, including practice-oriented insights on how social innovation can support people across different mission challenges.
Recent Events
We are proudly sharing two successful events, that happened this May:
- The Funder & investor networking event “Reimagining Social Innovation Funding for EU Missions” organised by our partners EdelGive/SIX took place on 11 May in Brussels, featuring a strong panel (read the full post here).
- Secondly, our first in-person workshop took place on 12 May in Brussels, organised by DRIFT, where the SIMF presented impact pathways of the 280 projects funded by the Missions. We further hat a panel discussion on future opportunities and challenges and as a highlight: an interactive session with the possibility to work in smaller groups on implementation mechanisms.
Ongoing activities
We have launched initial steps of our Training and Scaling Lab programme, and are developing tools to support funders, practitioners, and ecosystem actors in scaling social innovation more effectively across Europe.
The online capacity building webinars will run until June 2026, while the in person bootcamp in Bucharest, Romania, will take place in September 2026.
There will be an upcoming open call in June for the “Training and Scaling Facility”, addressing social innovators that wish to improve their skills in mission-oriented support. We will communicate the open call soon, make sure to spread the word to your network!
Expert insight
On 29 April, the SIMF had the opportunity to speak to Filipe Almeida, President of Portugal Social Innovation and member of our Advisory Board.
Filipe shared insights into his views on recent policy developments concerning SI and Missions. Filipe Almeida demonstrated how a coordinated, government-led approach can catalyse an entire ecosystem. Yet, as Filipe Almeida highlights, the real challenge lies not in generating innovative ideas, but in embedding them into systems. For the next EU funding cycle, the question is no longer whether to support social innovation, but how to ensure it drives lasting structural change.
“It is not enough to fund small or medium projects that test new solutions in an experimental perspective. It is not enough to mobilise investors to co-fund these projects. If you really want to achieve a change, you have to align all of these measures with public policies, because public policies are the ones that can really scale many of these solutions.” – Filipe Almeida
Want to read the full interview? Visit our blog, here.
Upcoming activities and events
Stay tuned for the following activities by the SIMF!
🗓️We encourage you to take a closer look into our curated SIMF calendar, featuring events organised by the SIMF and events organised by our ‘external’ social innovation and Mission ecosystems.
Visit our LinkedIn, for ongoing weekly updates.
We are building a growing European ecosystem that connects social innovation, policy, and investment to accelerate mission-driven impact. With strong partners, emerging tools, and first key outputs, SIMF is already taking important steps toward making social innovation a core force in Europe’s transformation journey.
