What does the future of life look like in urban areas in Switzerland?

How does the good life work within planetary limits? How can we live in a climate-friendly way in the future? How can we travel affordably, climate-neutrally — privately and professionally? How do we make it possible for everyone to eat as regionally and environmentally friendly as possible? These questions can only be answered together, co-creatively and with a new understanding of innovation.

The Innovation Booster Future Urban Society promotes radically new approaches to catapult the best ideas in the interconnected areas of housing, mobility and nutrition out of their niche. Bring along your solutions and develop them further with other experts and innovators. Help mainstream eco-social innovations and secure yourself and your team for jointly developed ideas methodological and financial support.

More about the basic idea of Innosuisse's Innovation Booster →

Current

Challenge Stage | Phase 2 - Call for Ideas
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With the transition to the second phase, the Call for Ideas is now open. We look forward to receiving new project ideas—and to seeing you at our events in the coming weeks.

The challenges of the past few months remain our starting point. At the same time, it is now becoming clear which approaches are taking shape and where further clarification is needed. There are often several iterations between an idea and a viable project—and it is precisely this space that we want to shape together.

For us, the Call for Ideas is therefore not just an invitation to submit proposals, but also a moment of consolidation: Which ideas do we want to pursue? And with whom?

Call 2026

Events

Ideation „Energy Communities“

How can we develop concrete solutions that strengthen energy communities and contribute to a secure, sustainable energy supply?

As part of the FUS Ideation process, we build on the challenges and insights identified earlier to develop initial viable solutions. The focus is on social innovations that enable new forms of collaboration and establish "energy communities" as an integral part of our energy infrastructure, particularly in areas related to participation, security of supply, and long-term responsibility.

To achieve this, we bring together people from the public sector, the private sector, and civil society; we test and connect ideas; and we support the formation of new partnerships and teams. The goal is to develop a robust project idea with a clear connection to the identified challenges, suitable partners, and realistic next steps toward implementation and potential funding.

📅 April 29, 2026, 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM
📍 Eastern Switzerland

Registration

📅 May 8, 2026, 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM
📍 Sion

Registration

📅 May 11, 2026, 10:15 AM to 12:00 AM
📍 Online

Registration

Ideation „Good Food for All“

How can we develop concrete solutions that embed good food for all as part of our social infrastructure?

As part of the FUS Ideation process, we build on the challenges and insights identified earlier to develop initial viable solutions. The focus is on social innovations that enable new forms of collaboration and effectively enhance existing structures, particularly in areas related to access, accountability, and institutional embedding.

To achieve this, we bring together people from the public sector, the private sector, and civil society; we test and connect ideas; and we support the formation of new partnerships and teams. The goal is to develop a robust project idea with a clear connection to the identified challenges, suitable partners, and realistic next steps toward implementation and potential funding.
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📅 April 29, 2026, 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM
📍 Eastern Switzerland

Registration

📅 30. April 2026, 15:30 bis 17:15 Uhr
📍 Online

Registration

Two years of social innovation to explore

We’ve put together a publication covering two years of social innovation in and for Switzerland: teams, learnings, and a wealth of knowledge across almost 80 pages. Enjoy browsing.

Das Magazin Soziale Innovation für die Schweiz von heute ist hübsch auf einem Tisch arrangiert

Open publication

Selected projects

In the first two years, we received over 100 submissions and funded 24 of them.

Discover all ideas

Sharing Sharing Sharing

RepairShare — A fund for anyone who prefers to repair rather than throw away

zuerich.repair

HSLU – Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts

RepairShare is a repair fund financed by solidarity that makes everyday repairs accessible and affordable for everyone — regardless of the place of purchase. Members pay a small contribution into a joint fund and receive fair repairs from local companies. Initiated by the Zurich.REPAIR network, RepairShare wants to promote adequate consumption, strengthen craftsmanship and make the sharing of responsibility visible — not as a sacrifice, but as a sustainable attitude. In the booster, we develop a financing model, clarify legal structures and develop a well-founded impact model with the CAS Sustainable Management at HSLU. TING.community supports the technical and content implementation. RepairShare shows: Not only can things be shared — but also responsibility, care and the future.

To the project

Sharing Sharing Sharing

Digital amplification for circular offerings

World of Plenty

OST – Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences

Fortunately, more and more places are being created where items can be passed on. At the same time, non-commercial sharing in the digital space is also increasing rapidly. The link between these two worlds is still missing. As a result, analog offerings remain in a niche and digital solutions do not represent an important part of non-commercial sharing. We are developing an intuitive solution to digitally capture and distribute items in analog circulation zones. This will give existing sharing offers more visibility and existing digital sharing spaces will be filled with additional items. Together with our partner organizations ERZ and ZHdK, we are testing the solution on 2 specific circular offers. This project is part of a larger vision of the World of Plenty association to create an independent digital infrastructure for the non-commercial sharing of items. As part of this vision, a team of volunteers is currently building the WOP app.

To the project

Circulation of things

Circular Living 2040

Cerca

FHNW

Circular Living 2040 creates an attractive vision of a circular society — which can be experienced as an everyday moment in a near circular future. The project is in two parts: 1: Co-creation with organizations & companies. Here, networked concepts for the practices, structures, processes and offers of a nearby circular society are designed. 2: A future apartment as a public space of experience & discourse. Here, the results from part 1 are presented in a lifelike way and can be experienced and discussed with pleasure.

To the project

We need systemic approaches

Climate crisis, destruction of biodiversity, energy crisis — we live in a world of multiple crises. Mastering these challenges requires radically new ideas and approaches, both technologically and socially.

Whether it's sharing, repairing, or DIY, many innovative approaches, projects, and ideas for climate-friendly living in urban areas remain small. This isn't because they fundamentally don't work, but because they often touch on various aspects of our lives, making it difficult to change our habits and involve diverse stakeholders in the implementation. The stabilization or distribution of integrative approaches works differently than purely commercial offerings. Therefore, we want to strengthen and scale eco-social innovations in our Innovation Booster to establish them in the mainstream.

“What concerns everyone, only everyone can solve.” Friedrich Dürrenmatt (The Physicists)

The major challenges of our time can only be overcome by working together with people from different sectors of society. That is why the booster uses an open innovation approach. Over the next four years, we will bring together key actors from civil society, science and business with city administrations, currently from Zurich, Basel and Lausanne. Together, systemic problems are researched and radical ideas for sustainable solutions are developed.

Be part of the solution and receive methodological and financial support

To enable and accelerate innovation, we connect cities and administrations with eco-social innovators as well as stakeholders from the private sector and science. We can financially support ideas that arise and/or are developed through the Innovation Booster Program with methodological and financial support, including vouchers for expert advice and coaching. In this way, we make it possible for promising innovations to be further developed and tested in urban areas of Switzerland. In addition, together with our partners, we are working to ensure that further implementation of the innovations after the booster is likely.
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Project ideas can be submitted until May 25, 2025 to secure financial support of up to CHF 22,500 and methodological support as well as valuable contacts for further steps.

Who is behind the project?

Meso Innovation Alliance
‍The Booster Future Urban Society is supported by Meso as a Leading House and is characterized by the expertise of the following organizations:

Team

Björn Müller

Programme Director | Meso Innovation Alliance / Stride the unSchool

Samuel Eberenz

Concept & Stakeholder Engagement | Stiftung Risiko-Dialog / Meso Innovation Alliance

Mirko Fischli

Project Manager Booster | Dezentrum / Meso Innovation Alliance

Nicola Blum

Concept & Research | BFH

Pascal Dey

Research | BFH

Anaïs Sägesser

Anchor Basel | Scaling4Good

Colm Kuonen

Energy Living Lab Association

Laura Minisini

Energy Living Lab Association

Olivier Mächler

Kommunikation | ARC Collective

City Partnerships

Urban innovation is only possible through strong partnerships with cities and municipalities. That is why we are particularly proud of our implementation partnerships: