What we offer
Seed funding to design and test solutions
Mentorship from innovation and sector experts.
Technical guidance on design, prototyping, and evaluation.
Technical guidance on design, prototyping, and evaluation.
What we offer
Financial support
Technical and project management support
Emphasis on learning
Peer-to-peer networking
Project impact
Project impact
Bring your idea to life
Innovation begins with a new idea, strategic and technical support, and a leap into the unknown. Whether youâre a UNHCR team or a community-led organization with a vision, our grants could bring your bold ideas to life.
Advance Data Innovation with UNHCR
Whether you are interested in collaborating on research, co-developing data-driven solutions, or strengthening the use of evidence in priority operations, UNHCR welcomes partnerships with organizations across all sectors.
Project needs beyond funding
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Our mission
The Innovation at UNHCR drives organizational change and strengthens humanitarian impact by designing, testing, and scaling new solutions that address challenges faced by displaced people. Its mission is to ensure UNHCR remains adaptive and effective in a rapidly changing world, empowering refugees and UNHCR colleagues to co-create practical, scalable innovations.
The service operates through a three-stage innovation model: incubation, acceleration, and scaling.
From ideas to impact
The UNHCR Innovation Incubator is the starting point of our innovation journey.
It enables teams and partners to explore new approaches to challenges faced by displaced and stateless communities.
The Incubator provides space for experimentation, learning, and adaptation, to ensure innovators have what they need to transform bold ideas into practical solutions that can influence programmes, policy, and partnerships.
Our approach is inclusive and collaborative: We work alongside refugees, host communities, and partners to ensure every innovation is grounded in lived experience.
Organizations led by people with lived experience of forced displacement or statelessness, including:
Special consideration and support to organizations led by:
Learn more about the application process
Our learning pathways
Innovation is not a single step. Itâs a journey of iteration, learning, and growth. As promising solutions emerge from the Incubator, teams engage in cycles of testing, reflection, and improvement, supported by mentorship, peer learning, and evidence generation.
Through continuous learning and validation, ideas mature into tested models that can be replicated, integrated, or scaled within UNHCR and beyond.
Innovation grows when people are empowered. UNHCR Innovation invests in strengthening the skills, confidence, and networks of colleagues and partners through learning pathways, mentoring, and community building.
From hands-on workshops to global learning programmes, weâre cultivating a culture of innovation across humanitarian operations.
Our learning pathways
Innovation is not a single step. Itâs a journey of iteration, learning, and growth. As promising solutions emerge from the Incubator, teams engage in cycles of testing, reflection, and improvement, supported by mentorship, peer learning, and evidence generation.
Through continuous learning and validation, ideas mature into tested models that can be replicated, integrated, or scaled within UNHCR and beyond.
Innovation grows when people are empowered. UNHCR Innovation invests in strengthening the skills, confidence, and networks of colleagues and partners through learning pathways, mentoring, and community building.
From hands-on workshops to global learning programmes, weâre cultivating a culture of innovation across humanitarian operations.
Our flagship learning programme empowers UNHCR and partner staff to design, test, and implement innovative solutions within their contexts. Fellows receive mentorship, seed funding, and tools to transform ideas into impact.
A global network of former Fellows and innovation champions who continue to collaborate, share lessons, and support one another. The Network keeps innovation momentum alive across regions and operations.
UNHCR Innovation provides direct learning and technical support to project teams funded through our four thematic Innovation Funds â helping them apply design, experimentation, and learning methodologies effectively.
Our impact
projects supported generated through an inclusive, competitive annual cycle that selects the most promising innovations
Our partnerships for impact
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Our scaled initiatives
A multilingual digital platform providing reliable, country specific information to asylum seekers and refugees, now active in over 130 countries, enabling people to access critical services and guidance wherever they are.
Innovative two-way communication app tailored for diverse displacement contexts. Making vital information more accessible to refugees- Scaled in 16 countriesâ and now feeding into the Digital Gateway initiative.
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Integrated AI into HR processes, reducing application review time from five to one minute and enabling HR teams to efficiently manage over 8,000 applicationsâstreamlining recruitment and easing administrative workload.
