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The importance of impact measurement in social innovation
13 August 2019
What was the European Social Innovation Competition 2019?
The European Social Innovation Competition 2019 moved into its second phase after the announcement of the 30 Semi-Finalists. The 2019 Impact Prize was also open for applicants.
The Impact Prize, worth €50,000, was open to all Semi-Finalists, Finalists and Winners from the previous year’s edition of Competition. The prize was to recognise the project that has had the most significant social impact across the previous 12 months.
With many challenge prizes ending after the prize money has been awarded, innovators often have to find other forms of funding and support. However, this post-prize award was a way to ensure that innovations supported by the competition could go on to be implemented and scaled, whilst achieving social impact.
What is social impact in innovation?
Impact is viewed in many different ways, with numerous methodologies and approaches as to how to conduct impact measurement. At Challenge Works, social impact is implicit in the impact we want to achieve, as we seek to create it through three strands:
- Breakthrough innovations – ensuring the solutions supported through the prize or competition are effective
- Cultivate innovators – innovators with the unique potential to solve a problem are incentivised to do so
- Systemic change – we are able to shape context by raising awareness, inform policy and shape the future of markets and technologies
Innovators and Impact
For innovators, it is important to think through the different levels at which you are creating impact, this can be done through the three levels of innovation, capabilities and ecosystem.
- Innovation captures the long term results or changes in people and their behaviours due to the innovative solutions
- Capabilities captures the long term results or changes that affect people’s knowledge and skills
- Ecosystem captures the long term results or changes in the market, in policy and in people’s opinions
Measuring impact through these categories allows innovators to create a narrative, or story, around themselves and their solutions in achieving impact, as the impact categories build upon one another.
Mouse4all’s story
Mouse4all were part of the 2017 edition of the European Union Social Innovation Competition: Equality Rebooted. They won the Impact Prize in 2018.
Based in Madrid, Spain they created an app that allows people with a physical disability who have difficulty using a touchscreen to use digital products like tablets or smartphones. Mouse4all highlighted that “impact is a word which resonates deeply” for them as they are determined to positively impact their users’ lives.
They found our framework for impact useful and practical for assessing their activities and the processes to achieve their goals, in terms of social impact and economic sustainability.
It helped them to think strategically about scaling as they sought to expand their distribution network internationally, realising the unique social impact they could have on people who cannot use mass market technological products.
It has helped us rethink our way of conducting business. In a social project or company, a key concern is how to make it sustainable. No matter how powerful your social impact is, if you disappear it will no longer have a positive impact. Every step of the way (activities and processes) has to contribute to scaling up the project
The Impact Prize process meant they were able to better plan for their impact going forward, as they were revising their long-term strategy.
They were thinking about how to ensure their focus remained on the intersections of persons with disabilities and technology, whilst developing new products that could add more value and impact to their users.
We are especially proud of having received this recognition, as the Impact Prize requires demonstrating a real impact achieved in a short timeframe. […] To be recognized by the jury as the project that has achieved the most significant social impact over the past 12 months is a huge satisfaction for a small startup company such as Mouse4all.
The Impact Prize 2019 was an opportunity for the European Social Innovation’s 2018 Semi-Finalists to gain significant understanding in assessing and achieving impact in their innovations and access to the €50,000 in available funding. These innovations were created to benefit people and society across the European Union.
The European Social Innovation Competition, run by the European Commission, was launched in memory of Diogo Vasconcelos.
The competition was open to applicants from EU member states and countries associated to Horizon 2020. The competition was delivered by a consortium of partners including Nesta, Kennisland, Ashoka,ENoLL and Scholz & Friends.
