Capacity through Social Innovation
SUSWELL establishes local communities of practice in Kosovo and Russia to build capacity through social innovation. We aim to improve and sustain health and well-being at community level in Pristina, Gjakova, Perm, St. Petersburg and Belgorod.
Our objectives are to build increased institutional capacity of higher education institutes, enhanced individual capacity of (future) health and well-being professionals, and greater social capacity in the respective local communities.
Other than traditional health initiatives, the SUSWELL consortium recognises the need for interaction of stakeholders across systems, professions and disciplines.
Our initiative is composed of nine higher education institutes and six social stakeholder organisations from seven European countries that are embracing the complexity of health systems and accepting the need of co-creation to allow for social change.
SUSWELL is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.
Background for our Capacity Building
Health and well-being of citizens is of high priority on the social political agenda in Kosovo and Russia, as it is in the EU. However, the quality of health and social care systems in the two regions is often insufficient and, equally as in most European countries, jeopardized for sustainability.
This leads to a pressing need to change the underlying systems and improve the quality. An important part of this change encompasses the manner of current education, the collaboration of health and well-being professionals, and research and innovation strategies to bridge this gap.
Our project modernizes health curricula of higher education institutes from Pristina, Gjakova, Perm, St. Petersburg and Belgorod. It builds local communities of practice to enable social innovation in order to improve health and well-being at community level.
Approach to Building Capacity and Social Innovation
SUSWELL establishes learning communities in Pristina, Gjakova, Perm, St. Petersburg and Belgorod that strive for learning and social innovation. They are based on the principles of local communities of practices that are considered an ideal approach to foster social impact towards a healthy society.
Our local communities of practice approach considers the specific needs, assets, current set-up, and previous experience of each local community. It enables to develop eye-level collaboration with mutual beneficial agendas of diverse stakeholders. This allows to develop applicable community-based interventions together with the local citizens that really benefit them.
Each of our local community of practice in Kosovo and Russia exists of higher education institutes, social stakeholders, and public partners. Through the community of practice approach, local cooperation and social learning processes are stimulated, with direct involvement of the community's citizens.
Each local community of practice is supported through tailored facilitation and evaluation approaches and instruments that are synchronized through the Social Innovation Learning Space Yanuz.
Through Yanuz, the sharing of experience and knowledge is accelerated inside and between our local communities of practice. Local change agents are educated and accompanied by change facilitators and mentors. In addition, an applied hybrid evaluation approach is facilitated.