meso - alliance for systems innovation

meso is an alliance of organisations and individuals from the fields of urban development, climate, sustainability, participation, future shapers and transformative innovation. We strengthen the urgently needed problem-solving capabilities of a democratic Switzerland through cross-sectoral innovation approaches – especially in urban areas with a focus on climate protection.

While many organisations in Switzerland are seeking to incubate pioneering practices, meso focuses on bringing together experienced innovators, research-based and entrepreneurial pioneers with challenge owners from public administration, politics and business who can provide legitimacy and enable scaling and/or amplification.

Thanks to our methodological expertise and transformation knowledge, we enable participating actors to learn with and from each other and to test and scale desirable social futures for urban Switzerland. Thanks to our lean structure and short decision-making processes, we can launch such projects without lengthy set-up phases and focus resources directly on impact rather than administration. In this way, we enable collective agency where individual actors reach their limits.

Our open social innovation flagship program is https://www.futureurbansociety.ch/en, the first accelerator for promising social innovations in the fields of housing, mobility and food related to questions of just urban transition and emissions.