Crowdsourcing-related pilot action: Vouchers for research/innovation projects (O.T4.2)

The pilot action was the second of six pilot actions carried out simultaneously in all seven partner regions to test and introduce the new services on the SYNERGY platform for Crowd Innovation.
 
The crowdsourcing-related pilot action “Vouchers for research and innovation projects” was comprising of two parts:
  • Collecting the crowdsourcing campaigns on the SYNERGY Platform
  • Matchmaking with possible solution providers
 
The main challenge was to interest potential users and to show them the benefit of participating in the pilot action. The extensive communication and promotional activities enabled to identify various interested users who uploaded campaigns on their research and innovation project ideas related to the Key Project Areas (KPAs) Additive Manufacturing and 3D-Printing, Nano- and Microtechnologies and Industry4.0 to the SYNERGY platform. The corresponding solutions were acquired through the matchmaking with suitable solutions providers from the innovation and research community. This enabled to connect (initial) project ideas with a lack of expertise/skills/competences with targeted technical solutions from the crowd.

In addition to testing the recently published SYNERGY Platform, the participants benefited from creating new partnerships bringing challenge givers and solution providers with mutually beneficial interests together. The best & most successful project was awarded a voucher to the value of €5000 that could be used for different services like consultancy, training, business plans, market analysis, research ordering and a lot more (article winner of the Vouchers for Research and Innovation Projects pilot action).

In general, the action was well received in all regions. The pilot action helped to raise awareness and introduce participants to crowdsourcing initiatives for research and innovation projects. The platform was evaluated positively in its functionality and handling, small comments in the direction of usability were considered in the platform redesign.
 
By including various interest groups from all partner regions, the pilot action had a transnational character. The reproducibility of the pilot action is given, the pilot action can be carried out well in this format in other partner regions or subject areas to raise awareness on crowdsourcing mechanisms. 

In the following we provide you with links to all relevant outputs and tools: 

SYNERGY Platform Crowdsourcing Service https://synergyplatform.pwr.edu.pl/challenges.
SYNERGY Research and Innovation Projects Pilot Action; Image Source: SYNERGY Project

SYNERGY Research and Innovation Projects Pilot Action; Image Source: SYNERGY Project