Unearthodox's Exploration Co-Lab 2027 for Nature & Social Impact Innovators (Up To CHF 10,000 Grant Funding)

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Applications are open for Unearthodox’s Exploration Co-Lab 2027. Are you working on today’s nature-society challenges, while reimagining the systems that caused them? The Exploration Co-Lab is an alternative incubator for edge-walkers: innovators with an ambition for all life on Earth to thrive, but whose work doesn’t fit into neat boxes. Over 10-months, we offer thinking space, cohort-based learning, and the customised support that radical ideas need.

This open call is for initiatives addressing root-cause issues in humanity’s relationship with nature. We are looking to support visionary work that goes beyond incremental fixes. Are you shifting underlying worldviews with radical new paradigms? Are you challenging institutional mechanisms built on commodification, anthropocentrism, or coloniality? Or deepening relationships with the more-than-human world through imaginative thinking?

If you are operating at this level of depth and possibility, we would love to hear from you.

Unearthodox’s Exploration Co-Lab Benefits

Grant funding: CHF 10,000 to help move your initiative forward.
A 10-month incubation journey: Beginning in March 2027, you will join a cohort of changemakers in an online environment dedicated to systemic transformation, connection, and changemaker wellbeing.
Access to a shared pool of up to an estimated CHF 60,000 in value of non-financial, tailored support, including: Peer learning and shared exploration, uncovering new pathways for change; individualised coaching and expert guidance; practical systems mapping and futures thinking; strategic positioning for yourself and your initiative; regenerative approaches to define and measure success.
Visibility and amplification: Your work will be showcased through Unearthodox’s communication channels, helping you to become more visible, findable and fundable.
Community and collaboration: We practice deep allyship, connecting you with a global network of systems innovators, mentors, and network weavers for belonging, mutual support, and collaboration.

Eligibility Criteria

This alternative incubator is open to all who share a commitment to reimagining systems for a just, vibrant, and regenerative future.

It has been designed for people who are curious and ready to challenge the status quo and reimagine possible futures as part of an engaged and interdisciplinary cohort. You value participation, trust, and empathy as practical tools, and want to contribute to shared learning and collective problem-solving. You think critically and creatively about nature-society challenges and more just futures, refusing easy answers in favour of better questions, and you co-create pathways for change alongside the communities most affected by them.

This call is for you if:

You are working on an early-stage initiative at the intersection of environmental and societal change. You don’t need to have everything figured out, but you do need to be past the idea stage. There should be some groundwork laid, whether that’s initial research and testing, a pilot, or active community engagement. A concept on paper alone isn’t quite enough for this call.
You might be in one of these phases:
- Testing: Likely with minimal resources, you are learning what works and what doesn’t by engaging directly with the people, environment or living systems you’re meant to serve.
- Proving: You have a tangible proof of concept that demonstrates the core idea can work, and you need funding to keep testing, refining, and building momentum.
- Deepening: You have begun to see what your initiative can make possible, and you’re ready to deepen the work by adapting your approach or exploring new pathways.
- Pivoting: You might be leading a more established initiative that requires a meaningful shift in direction, approach, or model.
- Or, somewhere between these phases. If you’re unsure which description fits, lean toward the one that best describes your current activity and mention it in your application.

If this sounds like you, even if your journey has been quiet, messy, internal, or nonlinear until now, we invite you to apply.