Effective collaboration drives innovation, particularly when addressing complex sustainability challenges.

The four Danish Innomissions—INNO-CCUS, MissionGreenFuels, AgriFoodTure, and Trace- are mission-driven partnerships working towards Denmark’s ambitious climate goals.

To optimize efforts and avoid fragmented approaches, fostering cross-Innomission collaboration is essential. 

Collaboration is the foundation of innovation, particularly in fostering synergy among the four Danish Innomissions. Their unified efforts, guided by a mission-based leadership approach and aligned with the four Innomission roadmaps, are essential for Denmark’s future innovation and sustainable development.

To maximize impact and prevent fragmented efforts, it is crucial to address key themes holistically and across missions.

Purpose 

The purpose of this theme is to critically examine and propose changes to the existing regulatory landscape that governs the four Innomissions.

The goal is to accelerate the adoption of innovative solutions in areas within PtX/Green fuels, carbon capture systems, environmentally friendly agriculture and circular transition for plastics and textiles. This ensures that the regulatory environment evolves in step with technological and systemic advancements, enabling a swift and effective green transition.

Projects in this theme should ultimately guide policymakers, providing actionable recommendations to remove barriers and create an enabling environment for sustainable innovation.

The roadmap of the four Innomissions clearly states the need for structural changes in the policy landscape to facilitate the necessary transition of the societal model, to obtain a future net zero society.  

Through 1-3 cross-mission projects, this theme should, for example provide:  

• Overview of the overall policy landscape. 
• Overview of well-known regulatory challenges. 
• Recommendations for a new, innovative policy landscape that rapidly will move the sustainable agenda forward 
• This theme will contribute to an overall understanding of how regulation is applied in Denmark and to a future strategic planning of how to use and provide guidance to policymakers.The solutions can also have international impact by sharing of Danish knowledge and best practices for other countries to be inspired by and adopt. 

Description 

While regulations are essential for maintaining safety and order, they can hinder implementation of novel solutions if they fail to keep pace with technological advancements.

A primary reason for regulatory reforms is the accelerating speed of innovation. The mismatch between regulation and innovation can hinder investments and economic growth. Investors are often reluctant to invest in innovative ideas if the regulatory framework is uncertain or overly restrictive.

By reforming regulations to align with the needs of emerging technologies, governments can foster a more inviting environment for investment and economic development.

Projects granted under this theme should provide recommendations for new, innovative regulatory solutions to change the overall policy landscape across the 4 Innomissions to support implementation of novel solutions.  

The four Innomissions will invest in projects, that for example:  

• Analyze and describe the regulations for climate and environmentally friendly innovation and their implications. 
• Analyze and describe barriers for access to data, especially between different actors and sectors. 
• Analyzes and describes the role of regulation in energy utilization across sectors (e.g., waste heat from electrical systems). 

• Analyzes and describes the role of regulation in distribution of water and other natural resources across sectors. 

• Map and describes barriers for setting up markets which are covering several energy sectors (electrical versus thermal markets)  

• Analyzes and describes the regulatory barriers to collaboration across value chains. 

• Understand and describes why incentive mechanisms are not present to facilitate transition of technologies and solutions  

• Describe the regulatory barriers to environmentally friendly R&D need to be addressed 

• Describe the de-risking of markets and regulated businesses to provide incentives for green investments. 
• Revisits and describes the importance of regulations in major infrastructure developments to facilitate a greener building sector. 
• Describe how the legal frameworks need to be aligned to prevent contradictory rules.  
• Describe how the role of science in informing regulation must be further developed 
• Examine regulatory barriers to new business models that decouple growth from consumption. 

The project(s) must meet the following conditions:  

• The project application must be related to at least two Innomissions  
• Criteria related to Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) will be included in the call.

Impact focus 

By focusing on new and innovative regulative solutions, projects should aim to change/reform the existing policy frameworks that influence both individual and organizational behavior.

Addressing the policy landscape is a critical component for achieving the objectives in each of the four Innomissions. The project should understand and describe how impact can be achieved by:  

• Climate-friendly Innovation: Understand and describe how regulation can pave the way for a more streamlined approval process for green innovation, methodology adoption technology and thereby accelerate market entry and adaptation.  

• Understand and describe the effect of regulatory frameworks focusing on implementation and roll-out of technical solutions, and how changes yield faster implementation, and thereby ensuring that the pace of the green transition is maintained and accelerated 

• Understand and describe the direct complementarity link between the Innomissions in terms of carbon emissions reduction. 

• Assessing the implications of regulations for environmentally friendly innovation.  

• Investigate regulatory barriers for new business models that will enable more environmentally friendly solutions. 

• Describe how innovative regulative solutions and policy foundations will help pave the way for the Danish industry working with sustainable solutions. 

Purpose 

The purpose is to identify initiatives that systematically and actively test, validate, and realize programs for citizen engagement interventions within rural and urban communities.

The initiatives must go across two or more of the Innomissions, and are furthermore encouraged to include civil society actors, private companies, public institutions, and universities from across the four Innomissions.  

Description 

There is an urgent need for us to understand at a holistic level across the Innomission areas what motivates and engages the Danes - as consumers and as citizens in the green transition.

Therefore, it is the aim of Theme 3 to call for research projects that can give us a better understanding of how to engage citizens for the needed large-scale transitions.

Throughout the last Century, uses of household goods and services by people in industrialized countries have spurred climate changes and put pressure on the planetary boundaries. Technological development and economic structures have provided people with a convenient but unsustainable lifestyle with critical and devastating consequences for our planet and human survival.

Data across the Innomission areas for Denmark find that there is a detachment between the threats of the climate crisis and individual citizens' (unsustainable) practices, (over-) consumption patterns, (lacking) sense of responsibility and willingness to change behaviour. Such practices are deeply rooted in individual habits, cultural norms and values, and material and social infrastructures.

Nevertheless, the ability to change behaviour is evident and perfectly illustrated by the Danes acting swiftly when energy prices suddenly skyrocketed, or the pandemic closed down the country. However, when these immediate dangers were over, past convenient habits, choices, and behaviours have taken over again with rapidly increasing negative impacts on our planet.

Therefore, at a policy level, there is a need for incentives to further the green transition. These incentives are typically embedded in top-down approaches where societal stakeholders such as industry, organisations or policymakers take the lead on changing consumption patterns and behaviour through market interventions, which directly or indirectly incentivise, inform, or nudge the citizens to make more circular and sustainable choices.

Such initiatives are underpinned by academic research and industrial challenges linked to the field of "social acceptance", where social or public acceptance levels have been used as guidelines for measuring people's opinions towards the implementation of new technologies, modes of consumption and potential behavioural changes.

However, such push- and top-down initiatives have been criticised for taking a normative perspective to people's reactions to technological change and societal transformation and being framed in non-consequential economic and behavioural set 

The four Innomissions will therefore invest in projects which for example: 

• Maps and documents societal readiness level (SRL) across the Innomissions  

• Reap benefits from past Innomission projects, maps, and documents quantitative and qualitative data on SRL parameters for large-scale transition and gather state-of-art data sets and scientific literature Citizen Engagement in Local Communities 

• Investigates, understands, and co-develops citizen-led initiatives across Denmark and compile analyses of how these initiatives motivate and inspire sustainable practices. Citizen Engagement with companies/stores/industry 

• Investigate and understand existing citizen-company engagements that strive to design a more sustainable consumer path and compile analyses of how these initiatives motivate and inspire actionable strategies, preferable across the Innomission areas. Citizen Engagement with public institutions  

• The public sector had a budget of 660 billion in 2022. Accordingly, a huge opportunity exists to investigate how to increase sustainable choices in the meeting with the citizens and the provision of goods and services by the public sector 

• This theme can in addition contribute to an overall understanding of how citizen engagement can be operationalized in Denmark and transformed into future strategic planning of how to use and provide guidance to policymakers. These solutions can have international impact by sharing of Danish knowledge and best practices for other countries to be inspired by and adopt 

The project(s) must meet the following conditions: 

• The project application must be related to at least two Innomissions 
• Criteria related to SSH will be included in the call 

Impact focus: 

This theme will serve as a catalyst for a societal shift towards sustainable living, participatory governance, and environmental justice. By bridging the gap between grassroots initiatives and large-scale policy changes, the theme aims to create the foundation for a paradigm shift in how sustainability is integrated into everyday life.  

The projects in this theme must:  

• Represents an important step towards a cultural shift where sustainable practices become deeply rooted in societal norms. Over time, this will lead to a collective consciousness where citizens are not just aware but actively participating in environmental conservation 

• Aims to pave the way for greater public acceptance of green technologies and sustainable practices. This will facilitate a smoother, more effective transition to a sustainable future.  

• Will contribute to more efficient use of resources, including energy, water, and materials. This will be achieved through the promotion of sustainable consumption behaviours and the development of community-led models for sharing resources.  

• Will stimulate job creation, which will contribute to economic vitality at the community level, rather than on a broader economic scale.  

• Adopts a holistic approach, emphasizing the equitable distribution of environmental impacts, leading to policies that are not only environmentally sound but also socially just, addressing disparities across gender, race, class, and ethnicity.  Denmark has the potential to become a global leadership in citizen engagement for sustainability, offering a blueprint for other nations. Sharing Danish knowledge and best practices will have a global impact, inspiring similar initiatives worldwide.
• Ultimately, this contributes to a future where sustainability is not an afterthought but a guiding principle in all sectors of society. By focusing on these long-term impacts, the theme aligns with the broader objectives of the Innomissions, ensuring that its contributions are transformative, sustainable, and far-reaching. 

Projects should include at least one organization which is a partner in one of the four Innomission Partnerships.  Enterprises, research institutions or public institutions in or outside Denmark and directly involved in the project activities are eligible to apply, participate and receive funding.

The lead applicant must hold a Danish CVR number.

To be considered, a project should consist of partners that are active participants in both the design of the project, the realization of the project and the active implementation of the results from the project. Relevant collaborations across enterprises, research institutions and public institutions must also be striven for. 

Upon final grant agreement, any new organization will join the Partnership by signing up as non-paying member of the TRACE association.

The investment covers a maximum of 75% of the total project cost. Examples include co-financing of salaries and other expenses directly linked to project implementation. The rules follow the guideline for InnoMission projects (see guidelines), and the funding rates follows the Innovation Fund Denmark Grand Solutions guidelines 2024, saction 3 and 7 (see guidelines). PhD students can be included in the budget for time spent directly on project activities contributing to objectives and milestones. Full funding for PhD programs is not provided. Costs for PhD capacity-building activities outside specific project tasks may be eligible if they support the mission’s impact. The project consortium must justify this need in the partnership plan. 

The four Innomissions do not accept applications where a successful outcome is dependent upon securing additional funding for further research and development (e.g. projects requiring multi-phase financing).   

• Project proposals must relate to at least two Innomissions and align with the respective roadmaps.  
• Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) should be an essential element to enhance impact. 

• Project alignment with TRL 3 to TRL 9, when TRL levels are relevant to the proposal. 

• Include at least one organization that is part of the one of the four Innomission partnerships 

• All projects must apply to all processes and systems implemented by the TRACE partnership and must report according to the rules set up in the Investment Agreement by the Innovation Fund Denmark and by the TRACE partnership. More information and instructions will be provided by the Trace team.   

All applications will be evaluated on:

The evaluation criteria are described in detail in the “Assessment Criteria "

• Strategic Fit to the Relevant Roadmaps and Innomissions  

• Quality of the Idea (Quality of the Research and Innovation)  

• Impact (Value Creation During and After the Project)  

• Quality of Execution (Efficiency in the Project Execution and the Implementation of Results)   

All criteria are included in the assessment and contribute to the overall assessment. The assessment provided by each evaluator is the reasoned opinion of the evaluator and is not a simple weighted sum of the ratings on the criteria. A strong project cannot have a low rating on Assessment Criteria 1 - “Strategic fit to the relevant roadmaps and missions.” 

Applications must be submitted via filkassen, which is the application portal of Innovation Fund Denmark. Applicants will receive a confirmation of their application upload via the provided contact e-mail. In the 14 days leading up to the application deadline, daily checks will be conducted to ensure timely confirmations.