Social Impact Challenge Weekend

The project "Social Impact Challenge Weekend" is a cooperation between LEMEX and 'BRIDGE - Gründen aus Bremer Hochschulen' and is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

The Background

Due to the increasing interest from politics and civil society in social innovations and the growing understanding of their valuable contributions to society, universities are now also faced with the question of how they can stimulate the development of social innovations and promote their implementation. The project will serve to anchor social innovations in the university transfer strategy in a sustainable and best possible way.
The aim of the project is to explore how students, doctoral candidates and employees of the University of Bremen can be sensitized and motivated for social innovations.  The collected findings will be used to further develop the university's transfer promotion with a targeted view to social innovations.

The Project

The core of the project is the implementation of a three-day event called "Social Impact Challenge Weekend" as well as the scientific evaluation of this extracurricular training and further education program to be developed. In preparation for the "Social Impact Challenge Weekend", all relevant actors on the university campus are to be identified and networked through the involvement of the transfer officers of all departments, an information campaign to publicize the newly created format and through active scouting of people involved in innovative research and project work. The event is intended to bring together students, alumni, doctoral candidates, and staff from all departments at the University of Bremen, and to raise awareness and motivation for topics such as social innovation and social entrepreneurship.
The "Social Impact Challenge Weekend" will take place from December 8 to 10, 2023. Participants will be able to identify targeted social problems in interdisciplinary groups and develop possible solutions, as well as subsequently implement and present prototypes. Throughout the process, teams will be supported by coaches from the region's social entrepreneurship community. At the end of the format, the solution approaches should be developed to such an extent that they can be transferred to the university's existing start-up support and transfer services.