Karolinska Institutet Innovations, RISE, and Leksell Social Ventures are shifting their perspective to support social innovation. They are focusing on the challenges faced by the public sector. Through a new innovation model, they aim to make it easier for the public sector, social entrepreneurs, and private investors to collaborate.
In the EU-funded project Boosting Future Outcomes, Karolinska Institutet Innovations (KI Innovations), RISE, and the social investment firm Leksell Social Ventures are engaging civil society and social entrepreneurs to tackle complex societal challenges in collaboration with public sector organizations. The project addresses the barriers that exist to innovative collaboration between the public sector and social entrepreneurs.
“The idea behind the project is that we want to start with those who are most often the recipients of innovations—namely, the public sector. By focusing on their challenges, we want to start at the ‘other end’ and, in a later stage, try to identify which social entrepreneurs and researchers might have the solution,” says Anna Forsberg, a business coach specializing in social innovation at KI Innovations.
“We want to look ahead by identifying challenges and then examining the real social impacts that emerge over time—hence the project’s name,” she says.
Being tested in various parts of the country
This spring, an innovation process will be tested in two municipalities—Uppsala and Tomelilla—as well as in the Jönköping Region. According to Anna Forsberg, testing the process with a few stakeholders in different parts of the country is beneficial for learning, refining the method, and later scaling it up to make the work adaptable and accessible to more people.
“The idea is that public sector entities should define for themselves exactly what challenges they need help with, since these can obviously vary from one municipality or region to another,” she says.
In the municipality of Tomelilla, the focus will be on preventive measures for children and young people. In Gottsunda, Uppsala, the challenge involves collaborating with the local community with a geographic focus, and in Jönköping, the goal is to increase opportunities to reach vulnerable groups through public health initiatives.
Follows the Swedish Public Procurement Agency's methodology
In the Boosting Future Outcomes initiative, they follow the framework for pre-commercial procurement, an approach that can be used to develop solutions that are not currently available on the market. The aim of this project is to give Tomelilla, Uppsala, and Jönköping the opportunity to develop potential solutions in collaboration with other stakeholders in their local areas.
“You could say it’s like a preliminary step in the procurement process that focuses on dialogue. When the solution isn’t already available on the market, stakeholders have to develop it together,” says Anna Forsberg.
Starting in March, the three partners will visit the selected locations to hold workshops. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the selected challenges, from both a local and a national perspective. Individuals with knowledge and experience regarding these challenges will be invited to the workshops to share their perspectives. The first stop is the municipality of Tomelilla.
– There will be representatives from the municipality, civil society, the business community, and academia. The collective insights and knowledge will later form the basis for drafting a request for information (RFI), which we will distribute more widely to gather even more input. We hope this will then lead to an innovation procurement process involving social entrepreneurs,” says Stefan Person, Business Developer at Tomelilla Municipality.
Read more:
Learn more about Boosting Future Outcomes and contact Anna Forsberg at KI Innovations and Dorthe Norman at RISE
Learn more about the Swedish Public Procurement Agency’s method for pre-commercial procurement.
Text: Celia Boltes