• We do not expect complete conception in the applications. It was judged by the ideas and potential itself. On the final version we worked together during the workshops, using design thinking. The Grantee is treated as a business partner–not client.
• A bottom-up recruitment process–every single person could be the Grantee.
• We supported all process – conception building, testing, evaluation, implementation, dissemination. Every grant had his own personal support.
• All reviews were important- innovations was public conducted at every stage of implementation.
• One test does not have to give success - we accepted right to incorrect conceptions. Settlement of grants based on the effects without invoices.
• Financing 100% of tasks.
• Non-standard operations of official - we organized business meetings in cafes, different cities, even in private homes. Small group mostly-conducive to open dialogue.
• Setting-up a Social Innovation Board to evaluate and select the Grantee.

Incubator is a perfect option for all wishing to bring about major positive change in what is currently called “social care for dependents and their supporters”. For those who want to take part in imagining, creating and communicating a future where what we currently creates will makes a major contribution to the health, well-being and success of people, communities and our economy.
Incubator do so by providing innovative solutions about what the social care do, how it can do this and the promising practices that should be built on, grown and spread dialogue and the sharing of ideas for anyone whom have vision or stake in the future of social.
At the moment we focus on popularization and create an implementing environment for arising solutions. We maintain the cooperation by groups willing to work together and supporting each other on the way to positive changes. Incubator instill unscientific thinking of young people by initiative and do workshops for students at the university.

Regional Cooperation Platform – space for social consultations
Social Innovation Board - 27 people conducting substantive and strategic evaluation applications, selecting innovations to disseminated. They ensure participation and transparency
Universities, cultural institutions, cafes - providing space and conference equipment for organizing meetings with interested activities of the Incubator
Institute for Educational Research
European Commission

Dependents and their caregivers, local governments and their units, the service of transferable securities, NGOs, health and medical companies, business companies, scholls, media companies, or any others who is ready to introduce the innovative solutions.

The main result of the Incubator is the creation of an environment to which ordinary citizens apply, and innovative solutions to social problems. The incubator has already supported 40 Innovators whom have developed, for example, models of work and support for older and disabled people, a cookbook for people with intellectual disabilities with 2nd and 3rd degree obesity, 2 mobile applications, a model for self-service shops, which supports blind people. Innovations change institutions from inside, support innovative thinking, open their eyes, motivate to a different perspective. For many people, participation in the Incubator was the first step to start working differently and changing the world around them.
The project has developed a full, blank evaluation study. It is divided into 3 stages: ex-ante, mid-term and ex-post. The study is based on individual and group interviews, analysis of developed models.

The biggest challenge of the Incubator is to support innovators who have no design experience and have never settled grants or subsidies. On the other hand, it is the core of the Incubator’s activity. For this purpose, the Incubator has appointed each innovator a guardian who supports and helps throughout the innovation test period.
The incubator in its model of action assumed also that the innovation may fail, that the solution that will be tested will not work. We consider such incubator designs to be a project's success.
However, the challenge for the incubator are administrative procedures, which do not always adequately and quickly respond to the pace of innovative projects.
The challenge is also a closed catalog of costs that can be implemented in the project and the lack of funds for the promotional activity of the Incubator.

The operation of projects such as the Social Innovation Incubator requires meeting several conditions that will allow not only to act but to increase its effectiveness and influence the long-term effects of the undertaken activities:
- a motivated, well-coordinated team that can act in flexible and adaptable way and adapts to the needs of innovators
- educated, experienced professionals, leaders,
- relevant legal provisions
- lack of administrative barriers and excessive documentation
- reduction of bureaucracy
- ordering chaos in legal regulations
-communication between the administration, business and universities
-long-term projects including the budgets, that can build and create the innovative environment for citizens.

At least 6 of the 40 innovations tested within the Incubator will be disseminated at the national level. Innovations are chosen by the Social Innovation Council, consisting of regional leaders and representatives of institutions helping the elderly and disabled people.
Right now, after the first stage of the project, we can see a lot of interest in the models that have been developed. We also can see that the institutions that operate as part of the Incubator are starting to cooperate with each other. This is an added value to the grant that we received from us.
We have also met with great interest from international partners within the ITHACA project, where 9 regions from EU share experiences and good practices on smart health and care innovation to improve active and healthy ageing of the population.

After two years of building the Incubator and supporting the inhabitants of Małopolska in innovations, we see that one of the most important areas of our activity is fuelling innovation, showing citizens that they do not have to be scientists, employees of large companies to come up with a new solution to the social problem.
We often meet with disbelief that we are not a technology incubator. On the other hand, after a few sentences of discussion, our discussers themselves admit that technology incubators are most often supported and by that we lose contact with people and society.

In our work, we believe in the power of bottom-up initiatives, that everyone can come and tell us about their idea. We also think that Malopolska residents have the potential and the best knowledge about social problems, because they are often the closest to them.

The second course of action, which worked very well for us, is the establishment of a regional Social Innovation Council, which consists of leaders, representatives of many aid institutions, universities, scientists and representatives of non-governmental organizations. Every day, members of the Council have influence on social policy in the region, they know problems of the elderly and the disabled people. They are interested in new solutions that can be implemented to the institutions they work with.

After 2 years of operation, we can see that the Council is also a guarantee of the long-term impact of innovation in the region. Thanks to it, developed, good and working innovations have a chance to enter the system and change it for the better.