Are you our new coach for the European Social Innovation Competition?

The European Social Innovation Competition is looking for experienced professionals who want to be involved as a social innovation coach with a semi-finalist team in their respective country. The coaching track is a crucial component of the competition. The 2020 European Social Innovation Competition – Reimagine Fashion: Changing behaviours for sustainable fashion – is a challenge prize across all European and H2020 countries.

This is the eighth year that the competition is organised. The competition offers three €50.000 prizes for the most innovative projects that aim to make the fashion industry environmentally and socially sustainable; either through creating a more sustainable production system, broader access to fair fashion, a socially inclusive fashion value chain, or a change in consumer behaviour. The Competition is run by the European Commission’s DG GROW, supported by a consortium of partners: Nesta, Kennisland, ENoLL, Ashoka and Scholz & Friends.

Out of all competition entries, thirty semi-finalists are selected by the beginning of May 2020. These semi-finalists are invited to take part in a social innovation mentoring program to progress their ideas. The programme consists of local coaching and the Social Innovation Academy in July. A development toolkit, serving as a guideline for semi-finalists to develop their initiative will be launched on the website in June.

By the end of August, the teams re-submit their project plans for the judges to review. Out of the thirty semi-finalists, ten finalists are invited to the Awards Ceremony in Brussels, where three winners receive a prize of €50.000 each. After one year, another €50.000 euro prize is awarded to the initiative that has achieved the most significant social impact.

Please review this page for an impression of the winners from previous years.

Coaching

Being a coach to the European Social Innovation Competition means you get to support Europe’s leading social innovators who reimagining fashion. Coaches of the competition are part of a vast and interesting network ranging from the European Commission, judges, organising partners, and contestants themselves.

As a potential social innovation coach, you are:

● Well-connected in your local social innovation community;
● Experienced in guiding people or organisations throughout different phases of innovation (incl. developing and testing an idea, implementing an initiative, pitching a project, and working towards financial sustainability);
● Intrinsically motivated to contribute towards social change and build a working relationship with social innovators in the Competition;
● Interested to learn about this year’s topic: Reimagine Fashion (read more);
● Able to spend an average of two hours per week on coaching (a total of 20 hours), from beginning of June to mid-August 2020. Should your team be selected as a finalist, you will be requested to spend an additional two hours of coaching with your team between
September and October 2020 (for additional remuneration);
● Willing to monitor the progress of the semi-finalist team, regularly reporting back to the Competition organisers.

As a social innovation coach, you will:

● Share a coaching plan with Kennisland as developed with the semi-finalist team two weeks after the coach and semi-finalist team have been matched;
● Communicate with the semi-finalist team at least once a week, in the time period starting when the match is made in May 2020 until August 20, 2020;
● Help the semi-finalist team set goals and identify their biggest challenges;
● Help to map opportunities for the semi-finalist team and connect them to relevant networks and communities;

● Provide support and guidance to the semi-finalist team while working on their Development Plan;
● Be part of the Competition’s coaching community by joining the Slack channel;
● Responding to short monthly surveys shared by Kennisland in a timely manner. These surveys help us to gather data and information that informs the tracking of progress for the semi-finalists.

Remuneration

This opportunity is remunerated. You are expected to provide a minimum of 20 hours of coaching in order to meet the responsibilities outlined above. For the coaching, you will be remunerated € 1.000,00 including VAT. After the coaching process has ended (mid-August 2020) you can send an invoice. Should your semi-finalist team be selected as a finalist, you will be requested to spend an additional two hours of coaching with your team between September and October 2020 for additional remuneration.

Apply now!

If you are interested becoming involved, please apply by filling out this form before April 20th, 2020. Kennisland will make a selection of coaches based on the geographical spreading of semi-finalists throughout Europe, the profile of the applicants and the coaching needs of the semi-finalists.

We also invite you to sign up to the Competition’s newsletter to receive updates about the European Social Innovation Competition. For questions, please contact Fien Hebly (Kennisland) – [email protected].

Please find the timeline of the mentoring programme of the European Social Innovation Competition 2020