Impact Innovation launches new sibling programs
It is now clear which consortia will be granted funds within Impact Innovation: Net Zero Industry Programme, Water for Vital Environments, Metals&Minerals, SustainGov and Shift2Access. For Viable Cities, the initiative means that we now have many more colleagues in Sweden.
- We need innovation to respond to crises and develop a sustainable society. We will now have more innovation programs that work for mission-driven innovation that solves major societal challenges. This is an initiative that is absolutely timely.
Olga Kordas, Program Manager Viable Cities
Viable Cities as a program started in 2017 and will continue for another six years as a strategic innovation program. For six years, Viable Cities has focused on mobilizing for climate-neutral cities with a mission-driven approach - bringing together all efforts towards a common visionary, clear and time-bound goal. The mission is: climate-neutral cities by 2030 with a good life for all, within the limits of the planet. This means fixing the climate crisis in a way that allows all people to live a good life and that we adapt to live within the resource limits set by the planet, for example in terms of material use and biodiversity.
- We realized early on in our program that completely new approaches are needed in society to make the changes required to address the climate crisis. We believe that the mission-driven approach where many actors join forces in a common direction is necessary to address this and other complex societal challenges.
Olga Kordas, Program Manager Viable Cities
The work took off in 2018 with the Climate Neutral Cities 2030 initiative, initially with nine Swedish cities, and now with 23 cities, all with high ambitions to transition to a climate-neutral and sustainable future. And the mobilization of the local transition journey for the Climate Neutral Cities 2030 mission has gained momentum internationally. In the Green Deal, the EU has set the goal for Europe to be a climate-neutral continent by 2050, and in 2022 the mission "100 Climate Neutral and Smart Cities 2030", also known as the Cities Mission, was launched, where Viable Cities and Swedish cities are pioneers. 112 European cities are now mobilizing for the same mission, and a growing number of countries are establishing similar programs as Viable Cities in Sweden to accelerate cities' climate transition.
Impact Innovation, the next generation of strategic innovation programs, is a development of the strategic innovation programs where Vinnova, the Swedish Energy Agency and Formas have been commissioned by the government to develop the form of strategic innovation programs. The goal is for the programs to clearly contribute to transformative change and sustainable development, as a basis for global competitiveness and societal benefit.
The winners of the first round of the Impact Innovation Program have been announced today. They are Net Zero Industry Programme, Water for Vital Environments, Metals&Minerals, SustainGov and Shift2Access. More information is available at impactinnovation.se.
