The City of Manchester, in collaboration with local partners involved in the Manchester Living Lab, is collaborating with a new EU project, CHEST, focusing on digital social innovation and the project is launching a series of open calls with funding for local initiatives and local partners.

CHEST is a 30 month Collaborative project co-financed with support from the European Commission through FP7. The aim of the project is simple. To provide a forum that will enable entrepreneurs and innovators from across the EU to propose new solutions that have the potential to address key societal challenges, so called ‘social innovation’. In addition to the creation of an online community platform that will facilitate the sharing and exchanging of ideas, CHEST will invest up to €2.5 Million in highly innovative ideas through the launch of three open funding rounds. Social entrepreneurs will be invited to not only propose new ideas with the potential to receive support but also evaluate and discuss the ideas of others with highest rated projects selected for funding.

This is a fabulous opportunity for the hundreds of millions of European citizens, the people who know and suffer from the problems that this project aims to address, to suggest solutions for the issues that plague them, their communities and Europe in general.

To find out more check out the project website.