Everyone is welcome to participate in an Open Innovation Workshop. It is about: 

• understanding the challenges and problems of a given subject 
• systemic mapping of the involved actors
• networking with diverse disciplines and finding mates for submitting an idea proposal
• being eligible to submit an idea and participate in the Innovation Booster campaigns, incubation sessions, pitching, and receive funding.

For Idea Proposal Submission

• participation in one of our workshops 
• reference to challenges and problems out of the workshop
• idea proposals with the potential to transform and change a status quo
• submission as a team or as an individual prepared to form an innovation team
• possibility for open or confidential submission

• successful participation in incubation sessions
• defined innovation hurdles and research questions pertinent to problem/challenge
• innovation team with one representative from an implementation partner and one from a research partner

IMPORTANT
To receive any funding no private persons or individuals are eligible, each party must be a legal entity. (Company, association, research organization, official body i.e. municipality)

Selected idea proposals must participate in at least 3 incubation sessions (approx. 6 weeks) with the Innovation Booster’s experts and coaches to be eligible to pitch to a jury of experts and to get funded. These sessions will help to:

• • Assess the problems & innovation hurdles
  • Identify competencies & form a team (at least one implementation partner and one research partner)
  • Work out a project proposal addressing the problem, USP, innovative step, research question and business model

• viability: the way your project will operate sustainably (environmentally and economically)
• desirability: check on user experience and assess how and how much your solution is wanted/needed by customers
• feasibility: assess the technical possibilities and available competences or the likelihood of your project to be realized and achieve the wanted impact

…to be worked on after funding. 

Ideas and projects are evaluated according to their

• degree of innovation: how novel the idea is to the market, which innovation hurdle is to be taken, which research question is to be answered
• radicality of idea: what potential does the idea have to transform the status quo by understanding a problem at its roots and solving it in a new way?
• competencies of the innovation team: does the team consist of a research and an implementation partner? Are the right competencies on board?

Find more information on radical innovation in the following video: 
What is radical innovation?
Radical vs Disruptive innovation

Project Funding of CHF 39’000,- composed of

• CHF 5’000 incubation phase grant (to be retrieved after pitching, independent of the outcome)
• CHF 4’000* co-funding contribution from the innovation team at a positive pitching decision (*vouchers available for members of Cluster Food & Nutrition and Swiss Food Research)
• CHF 15’000 after positive pitching decision and contract signed
• CHF 15’000 after successfully passing the project mid review session

Support 
Following the incubation sessions, the innovation team is further supported by the experts and coaches at project review sessions and per request of the innovation teams. For desirability, viability and feasibility testing, the selected innovation teams have access to the living labs of the support group and the networks of Cluster Food & Nutrition and Swiss Food Research. 

Duration
The project should be finalized within 12 months, after funding has been confirmed and, at the latest at the end of December 2027, when the Innovation Booster program will end for the Innovation Booster Future Food Farming.