Gesellschaft der Ideen

Social Innovations can make our lives easier and more enriching. We need new ideas to tackle challenges and shape societal coexistence in an ever-changing society. With "Gesellschaft der Ideen" (English: Society of Ideas) the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has launched a competition for the best ideas in social innovations.

Our society is changing - the way we communicate, live, work, learn, move, and consume is subject to constant change. Globalization and digitalization are transforming our everyday lives and the way we interact with each other witin families, in our neighbourhoods or at work. We - as a society of ideas - decide how we meet new challenges and utilise new opportunities, now and in the future.

In the first phase of the competition, the BMBF awarded 30 teams out of the more than 1,000 ideas submitted with the „Ideenpreis für Soziale Innovationen“ (English: Prize for Ideas for Social Innovations). Within six months, these teams formed scientific partnerships and developed their ideas into working concepts.

Afterwards, these concepts were evaluated online by citizens (June 2021). In addition to the assessments by a panel of experts, the results from the online evaluation process were included in the BMBF's decision as to which ten teams would move on to the second phase of the competition. During a two-year trial period, the ten teams received further funding of up to 200,000 € and were able to prepare for implementation into the practical phase of the competition.

At the end of June 2023, the ten project teams participating in the trial phase presented their interim results, impact models, and continuation plans to a panel of experts. The BMBF selected the four most convincing concepts to furthermore implement them into practice. Each team received funding of 250,000 € for up to three years, along with professional support and mentoring for sustainability and scaling.

The ininative focuses on the societal impact the teams and ideas can achieve with their approaches. After all, it is only when ideas successfully initiate changes that they can contribute as social innovations to sustainably improving the way we live together as a society.