Kollektiva, a partner organization within the Consolid8 EU-funded project consortium, contacted Invest4Health for an interview as part of their efforts to learn from and exchange ideas with social innovation ecosystems across Europe. Their project focuses on actively engaging with initiatives that drive social innovation, making Invest4Health a valuable case study. Our collaboration began when Invest4Health was represented in the INTEGER webinar in September, sparking their interest in our work.
This interview explores how Invest4Health addresses critical challenges in financing health promotion and disease prevention through Smart Capacitating Investments (SCI). We discuss the unique characteristics of our ecosystem, the goals and activities shaping our work, and the partnerships that drive innovation. Additionally, we reflect on the challenges, gaps, and opportunities in building a sustainable social innovation ecosystem and share key lessons that could inspire others working in this space.
Consolid8: Which sectors or social challenges do your social innovation ecosystem address?
Invest4Health: In our ecosystem, the focus is on improving health and preventing disease. In Invest4Health, we’re particularly interested in finding new ways to finance health promotion activities with a new approach called Smart Capacitating Investment (SCI). As such, our focus is primarily not on interventions that help people live healthier lives but on providing decision-makers and policymakers with different ways to fund and sustain such hight quality interventions. In addition to health, we also address social challenges like equity and access to essential services. By working on these issues, we aim to build healthier, more equal communities where everyone has the chance to thrive.
Health education campaigns, policy development, community engagement, or research need upfront and sustainable resources, human expertise, and soft/hard infrastructure. And increasingly, the challenge is to make this happen for communities in low-resource settings.
Consolid8: What makes your ecosystem distinct? Are there differences in how social innovation is perceived across various stakeholder groups (e.g., government, businesses, community organisations)?
Invest4Health: The health ecosystem for health promotion and disease prevention encompasses interconnected stakeholders, sectors, resources, and activities working together to improve population health and well-being. Key stakeholders include public health organisations, community organisations, government entities, educational institutions, and private sector players, collaborating across sectors like healthcare, public health, education, workplace, schools, urban planning etc. However, Invest4Health also includes organisations, departments, and entities that may provide financial backing for initiatives as part of the ecosystem.What makes this ecosystem distinct is its focus on fostering collaboration between traditional actors and these new entrants to implement social innovation through smart capacitating investments. These innovations include financial, business, and governance models designed to support initiatives to improve and maintain health while promoting sustainability and scalability for the solutions via social franchising. This approach emphasises the need to move beyond relying solely on traditional government funding, seeking innovative ways to mobilise resources and manage initiatives effectively.These diverse groups, governments (local and regional), businesses, investors, public health organisations, and community actors bring unique perspectives, whether focused on policies and regulations, investment and sustainability, or social impacts. This extended ecosystem, including financial sector actors and citizens, also introduces new dynamics and opportunities for collaboration. By acknowledging and integrating these different viewpoints, the ecosystem supports cohesive actions toward shared goals and even shared resources and risk-taking, making it a powerful driver of sustainable health innovation.
Consolid8: What are the primary goals of your ecosystem, and what activities are carried out to achieve them?
Invest4Health: Our ultimate goal is to improve the health of populations through initiatives that empower people to make healthier choices, engage in healthy behaviours and help reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases. Whitin Invest 4Health, each of our four testbeds represents a unique regional ecosystem where we aim to create and test new business and finance models to invest in health promotion and disease prevention that can be used in other regions. To achieve this, we work with local stakeholders, involve citizens and interview the key actors to understand their needs, concerns, and motivations. We are also designing a governance framework for investment decision-making that works for everyone involved and provides sustainability. Additionally, we provide training to strengthen local organisational memory, bringing stakeholders together to learn about SCI, share insights, discuss challenges, and find local solutions. Advocacy is also on our agenda, as we aim to influence policies and practices that support sustainable change. Moreover, in 2025, a new tranche of regions will join us to learn more about what works and what doesn’t to help refine our investment approach and models.
Consolid8: What are the main challenges in building a successful social innovation ecosystem?
Invest4Health: One of our biggest challenges lies in locally testing and learning from our novel investment models, i.e., putting our research results in smart capacitating investments into practice. Also, finding the right stakeholders, including financial management teams in healthcare providers, local government, and other possible investors (private, public, community), and engaging them to think and work together. Securing investment for these initiatives can be difficult, especially since they are not always seen as profitable in the short term. Another challenge is the complexity of governance with multiple stakeholders. Different regions have different policies, laws and regulations, making it hard to implement a uniform approach. Also, stakeholders often have conflicting priorities. For example, governments focus on health policies, while businesses focus more on financial returns. It’s not always easy to align everyone’s goals, which can slow down progress. Finally, departments may be sceptical about trying new methods of financing and governance, primarily when they are used to traditional systems.
Consolid8: What is currently missing from your ecosystem to enhance its success (e.g., resources, policies, or partnerships)?
Invest4Health: There are significant gaps in our ecosystem. One of the most significant issues is that our field lacks resources, mainly financial resources, especially in the stagnant or barely moving fiscal space that governments have today to fund the public sector. This is what our work is addressing. Another gap is the lack of policies specifically supporting innovative financing models like SCI. That’s why we must be advocators for policies that make it easier to use novel financial, business and governance models, especially in the health sector. Finally, stronger partnerships between different sectors (government, businesses, finance, and community groups, citizens) would help us create more integrated solutions. So, there’s room to build stronger networks and connections to help make our ecosystem more effective.
Consolid8: Are there any collaborations, networking opportunities, or new projects sparked from this program?
Invest4Health: In I4H, we have the opportunity to work with testbed regions, and we have just published an open call to attract new regions to collaborate with us. At present, we work with 18 partners and are open to working with more as we not only develop new investment models and test them but, within the project timeframe, disseminate them for further learning and refinement.
Additionally, we are seeing new opportunities for joint actions. We work with umbrella organisations that are working with regions in Europe in the field of public health, we collaborate with the European Partnership of Transforming Health and Care system, and we look for connections with similar Horizon Europe projects and EU initiatives to share challenges and discuss and jointly publish possible solutions to help scale health promotion efforts across borders. These collaborations open up exciting new possibilities for scaling our work and having a bigger impact.
Consolid8: What lessons from your experiences could inspire other ecosystem builders?
Invest4Health: One of our biggest lessons is how much trust and collaboration between local actors is essential. These stakeholders include municipalities, public health authorities, departments managing health promotion or disease prevention, funding agencies, investors, civil society organisations, and patient representatives. Social innovation isn’t something you can do alone. It requires bringing together groups with different languages, working cultures, and perspectives to work toward a common goal. Building trust and maintaining open communication is key to overcoming these challenges.
We’ve also learned the importance of flexibility. Not everything will work as planned, and sometimes, we need to adapt based on local circumstances, feedback, and experiences. This adaptability helps ensure that our initiatives remain relevant and effective.
Involving local communities in decision-making is another crucial lesson, even though it can be challenging. To address this, we’ve created a project-level Citizen Patient Advisory Group and invited citizens to participate in building local governance models at the testbed level. By listening to the people most affected by our initiatives, we can create solutions that are better aligned with their needs and more likely to succeed. This participatory approach helps ensure that our solutions are effective and sustainable in the long term.
Involving local communities in decision-making is another crucial lesson, even though it can be challenging. To address this, we’ve created a project-level Citizen Patient Advisory Group and invited citizens to participate in building local governance models at the testbed level. By listening to the people most affected by our initiatives, we can create solutions that are better aligned with their needs and are more likely to succeed. This participatory approach helps ensure that our solutions are effective and sustainable in the long term.
