The Expression of Interest for the Innovation Accelerator will be launched at 10:00 CEST on 1st June 2026.
Vision and objective
Humanitarian challenges are becoming increasingly complex as displacement situations grow more protracted and interconnected. At the same time, technology, financing models, partnerships, and approaches to service delivery are rapidly evolving, creating new opportunities to strengthen protection, inclusion, and assistance for forcibly displaced and stateless people.
Across UNHCR and the wider humanitarian sector, many innovative initiatives successfully demonstrate impact at pilot stage but struggle to move beyond localized implementation. While promising solutions often show operational value and community relevance, they frequently lack the long-term support, institutional pathways, partnerships, and investment needed to scale sustainably across systems and contexts.
The UNHCR Innovation Accelerator exists to help close this gap between successful experimentation and sustainable, system-level impact.
The Accelerator supports the transition from proof of concept to broader adoption by enabling high-potential innovations to grow, adapt, and strengthen their contribution to protection outcomes at scale. Its ambition is to help foster more adaptive, collaborative, and future-ready approaches to humanitarian response, approaches capable of responding to evolving displacement challenges while remaining participatory, ethical, and grounded in humanitarian and human rights principles.
The Accelerator recognizes that transformative change cannot be achieved by any one actor alone. Meaningful progress requires collaboration across refugee-led organizations, communities, governments, humanitarian and development actors, academia, and the private sector to collectively shape solutions that are sustainable, scalable, and responsive to real operational needs.
About the Accelerator
The UNHCR Innovation Accelerator is a collaborative initiative led by UNHCR Innovation, in partnership with internal and external stakeholders, and supported by the Government of Luxembourg.
It is designed to help tested; high-potential innovations move from successful pilot implementation toward sustainable scale and long-term operational impact. The Accelerator complements UNHCR’s wider innovation ecosystem by supporting initiatives that have already demonstrated proof of concept and are ready to strengthen their pathway toward broader adoption and implementation.
Through a structured scaling pathway, the Accelerator provides selected initiatives with tailored support to strengthen their readiness for scale, sustainability, and institutional uptake.
Support may include:
- Technical guidance and operational support
- Catalytic funding and mentoring
- Partnership brokering and consortium-building
- Access to wider networks, expertise, and learning opportunities
- Evidence generation and learning support to strengthen adoption and long-term impact
The Accelerator brings together a diverse ecosystem of actors, including UNHCR operations, refugee-led organizations, governments, UN agencies, NGOs, academia, development actors, and private sector partners.
Its approach is grounded in three core principles:
Diverse Partnerships:
The Accelerator promotes partnerships between UN agencies, NGOs, refugee-led organizations, governments, academia, and the private sector to combine expertise, strengthen delivery, and support scale. Collaboration and consortium-building help initiatives move beyond isolated pilots.
Evidence and Learning:
The Accelerator supports evidence-based scaling through learning on impact, adoption, operational effectiveness, and sustainability across different contexts. Shared learning and storytelling help strengthen initiatives and support scale-up.
Sustainability:
The Accelerator supports innovations in moving from pilots toward sustainable scale and long-term impact. It emphasises engagement with refugee-led organizations (RLOs) and community actors, alongside operational readiness, financing approaches, and pathways to scale.
Join the launch event
Interested in learning more about the UNHCR Innovation Accelerator and the upcoming Expression of Interest process?
What the Accelerator offers
Selected teams can expect the following support:
- Strategy and Governance: The Accelerator helps teams strengthen their overall approach for growing and sustaining their innovation, refining the overall value proposition. This includes support on objective setting, planning for scale, multi-year programming, integrating solutions into wider delivery in displacement settings, building evidence, and navigating different processes where needed.
- Partnership Brokering and Ecosystem Navigation: The Accelerator connects teams with refugee-led organizations, donors, researchers, private sector partners, and UNHCR colleagues to support testing, improvement, and scale.
- Technical Support: Teams receive access to technical expertise and practical advice to help refine their solutions, adapt them to new contexts, strengthen operational readiness, and plan for long-term sustainability.
- Learning: The Accelerator supports teams to capture lessons, measure progress, and build evidence on what works. It also helps teams strengthen storytelling, communications, and visibility so they can share their experience and attract wider support.
- Resource Mobilization: The Accelerator helps teams identify fundraising opportunities, engage potential donors and partners, and strengthen pitches and presentations to mobilise additional support for scaling.
- Financial Support: Selected initiatives may receive some catalytic funding to support activities such as testing in new locations, technical improvements, partnership development, operational preparation, and evidence generation. Funding levels will depend on the needs and scale of each initiative.
Eligibility and application process
The Accelerator selection process is multi-stage and designed to identify high-potential scaling initiatives while strengthening collaboration between organizations throughout the process.
Stage 1 – Expression of Interest
The Expression of Interest (EoI) stage is open to organizations with proven concepts supporting forcibly displaced people that are ready to scale.
Applicants are encouraged to form collaborative partnerships bringing together operational, technical, strategic, and community expertise across UN agencies, NGOs, private sector companies, academia, development partners, and community-based organizations.
Through the online platform, applicants submit evidence on their proof of concept, operational relevance, scaling ambition, partnership ecosystem, and expected impact.
Applications are screened for eligibility, technical readiness, and strategic relevance, while the Secretariat also identifies opportunities for thematic collaboration and partnership-building across submissions.
Selected applicants may then participate in networking and collaboration processes to strengthen proposals ahead of the Full Proposal stage.
Stage 2 – Full Proposal
Selected applicants are invited to submit Full Proposals. Applications at this stage must be led by – or jointly submitted with – either UNHCR teams or refugee-led organizations (RLOs).
Partnerships between humanitarian, development, and other actors are strongly encouraged where they demonstrate shared ownership and clear pathways to scale.
UNHCR applicants may include country operations, regional bureaux, HQ divisions, or cross-functional teams, with clear institutional ownership and implementation arrangements.
Projects must demonstrate an existing proof of concept or pilot implementation, including operational testing, preliminary results, and user validation. Concept-only proposals are not eligible and may be better suited to the Innovation Incubator or associated Innovation Funds.
Teams will further develop a structured scaling proposal outlining their pathway to scale, partnership approach, financial considerations, risks, and intended impact. Proposals will be reviewed by technical experts from inside and outside UNHCR to develop a shortlist of high-potential initiatives.
Meaningful engagement with refugee-led organizations and community actors throughout design, implementation, and scaling is strongly encouraged.
Final Selection
Shortlisted teams will present their initiatives to the Steering Committee through a pitch and selection process. Final decisions are informed by technical review panels, partnership readiness, strategic relevance, and scaling potential.
To apply
The Expression of Interest form for the Innovation Accelerator will go live on 1st June 2026 at 10:00 AM. The application deadline is 12 July 2026 at 11:59 PM CEST (Geneva time).
Selection criteria
Expressions of Interest are assessed through a staged process designed to identify initiatives with demonstrated proof of concept, credible scaling potential, strong institutional ownership, and meaningful partnership ecosystems.
Problem and solution value
The initiative clearly defines a relevant problem or opportunity affecting forcibly displaced people. Challenge articulation demonstrates understanding of the underlying barriers and root causes. The solution presents a meaningful improvement over existing approaches and articulates a clear value proposition.
Proof of concept and evidence
The initiative demonstrates evidence of real-world implementation, including preliminary results, operational learning, and user validation or adoption. Evidence should support the viability and relevance of the innovation model.
Scaling potential and readiness
The initiative demonstrates credible potential for replication, adaptation, transferability, or broader uptake across different contexts and operational environments.
Scaling pathways and feasibility
The proposal articulates a realistic and coherent pathway toward scale, including clear next steps, understanding of constraints and dependencies, identification of relevant actors and contexts, and evidence of demand or operational relevance.
Institutional ownership and partnerships
Expressions of Interest demonstrate strong ownership and operational anchoring. Applicants should articulate relevant partnerships with and between UNHCR entities, other UN entities, NGOs, refugee-led organizations, private sector, and other strategic partners. Clear roles, openness to further collaboration, and ecosystem approaches are strongly encouraged.
Impact at scale
The initiative demonstrates the potential for meaningful and plausible impact at greater scale, with clearly identified impact for communities, and integration of Age, Gender and Diversity (AGD) considerations into the design and scaling approach.
For more details on how the selection criteria are applied, see FAQs below.
FAQs
1. Am I eligible to apply?
If you’re acting on behalf of an organization working to support forcibly displaced people, then most likely! At the Expression of Interest stage, we are welcoming applications from a wide variety of types of organization who have demonstrated the potential of an innovative solution or approach.
As applicants move through the Innovation Accelerator selection process though, the full proposals submission must be led or co-led by either a UNHCR team or a refugee-led non-profit organization and as such strong partnerships and collaboration are essential.
If your initiative has not yet been tested in a real-world context, UNHCR teams and refugee-led organizations may be better suited for the Innovation Incubator and its associated Innovation Funds.
2. Do I need to have a fully-fledged project or idea?
Not at all. The Accelerator is designed both as a selection mechanism and a development mechanism. Teams continue refining their scaling approach, partnerships, and implementation pathways throughout the Accelerator process. Some key information is requested at both Expression of Interest and Full Proposal stage, however, to support the overall selection and greater specificity will only increase chances of progress.
3. What counts as innovation for the Accelerator?
The Accelerator focuses on tested but still emerging innovations that have demonstrated operational relevance and show potential for broader transformative impact, but which are not yet widely adopted, institutionalized, or implemented at scale. The Accelerator is intended to support approaches that go beyond established or business-as-usual solutions and require further adaptation, evidence generation, partnership-building, or operational support to scale sustainably and responsibly.
4. What kind of ideas are you looking for?
Innovations may involve new technologies, operational models, partnership structures, financing approaches, community-led approaches, or institutional processes. The focus is not only on novelty, but on the potential to significantly improve protection, inclusion, assistance, or self-reliance outcomes for forcibly displaced and stateless people and their host communities. Regarding thematics, projects supported through the Accelerator focus on a wide range of thematic and operational areas. The Expression of Interest stage is intended to cast a wide net and understand the areas of priority for different stakeholders. Following this, the Accelerator Secretariat will prioritize key thematic focus areas.
5. How will you select projects?
Applications go through a multi-stage process. First, Expressions of Interest will go through a two step screening: an eligibility vetting and a minimum standards review. Following this process, the Accelerator Secretariat will create thematic clusters where promising EoIs will be placed to build Full Proposals, strengthen collaboration with other applicants and partners. And coalesce around the most promising initiatives. Full proposals will then go through a technical review, before a final selection by the Innovation Accelerator Steering Committee.
6. What is the assessment criteria?
Applications are assessed on the basis of their:
• Problem and solution value
• Proof of concept and evidence
• Scaling potential and readiness
• Scaling pathways and feasibility
• Institutional ownership and partnerships
• Impact at scale
7. Is there a limit to the number of applications we can submit?
No, but only one initiative should be submitted per Expression of Interest form. Teams are encouraged to minimize the number of submissions and prioritize quality, strategic relevance, and partnership strength rather than submitting multiple overlapping proposals.
8. I’m a UNHCR staff member. What approvals and requirements do I need to meet?
For UNHCR applicants, Expressions of Interest should demonstrate institutional ownership and operational anchoring across relevant UNHCR entities. Applicants should identify a lead project owner and demonstrate appropriate operational and strategic engagement across Country, Regional, and/or HQ levels where relevant.
9. How much funding can teams apply for?
The Accelerator may provide catalytic seed funding to help initiatives move from early scaling ambition into practical delivery. This funding is intended to support the first stages of implementation and scaling readiness, including activities such as operational preparation, partnership development, community and refugee-led organization participation, testing and adaptation in new contexts, and evidence generation.
The Accelerator is designed to help position initiatives for longer-term sustainability and future resource mobilization, rather than act as a sole source of long-term financing. Funding levels will therefore vary depending on the maturity, scope, and needs of each initiative. While support of up to USD 250,000 may be available in exceptional cases, most initiatives are expected to receive lower levels of catalytic support appropriate to their stage and scaling pathway.
10. What can the seed funding be used for? What can’t it be used for?
Seed funding will prioritise activities that strengthen meaningful participation and leadership of refugee-led organizations and community actors within the initiative. It may also support early scaling and implementation activities such as partnership development, operational testing, technical adaptation, implementation readiness, and evidence generation that help position initiatives for future resource mobilization and broader impact.
The funding is intended as catalytic support to help initiatives move into the next stage of growth and scale. It is therefore not designed to cover ongoing operational costs or long-term staffing commitments.
11. For UNHCR teams, how would this work programmatically?
Depending on the implementation modality and project structure, operationalization approaches – including financial and budgetary elements – will be discussed jointly with selected teams and relevant entities.
12. How does the Accelerator monitor and evaluate initiatives, and what are the reporting requirements?
Projects will receive support to develop appropriate monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) frameworks focused on operational effectiveness, scaling progress, partnership development, evidence generation, and impact at scale. Reporting requirements will focus on lessons learned, adaptation, and progress toward scaling objectives and be determined project by project.
13. How can a team ensure successful implementation of their project?
Successful implementation requires a clear and shared ambition for the impact the initiative is seeking to achieve, alongside strong ownership and coordination across partners involved in delivery. Initiatives are more likely to succeed when they bring together diverse and complementary partners, including refugee-led organizations, operational teams, technical experts, and other stakeholders, with clearly defined roles and a common vision for scale and sustainability.
Teams should remain adaptable throughout implementation, using evidence, learning, and community feedback to refine their approach over time. Building a strong evidence base, demonstrating operational value, and showing early results can also help create a compelling case for longer-term support, partnership development, and future resource mobilization.
14. How can I get in touch with other questions?
For any questions or feedback, please contact: [email protected]