Innovation Skills

The idea

The Innovation Skills programme helps people and organisations make great ideas happen. The platform brings together insights, methods, expertise and evidence from our contributors across a range of sectors from public services to hi-tech industries. It shares some of the practical skills needed to make innovation happen.

The problem

The UK is full of creative people with lots of ideas, but they often struggle to make these ideas a reality. Therefore, the ideas and their potential are wasted.  In the current climate, people in public services are also being asked to do more with less. In changing times, traditional ways of thinking aren't going to work.  

What are we doing?

We want to demystify innovation and make it into a practical process, empowering individuals and giving them the tools to turn learning and theoretical ideas into practice. We know innovation is about more than just common sense: there are particular techniques and approaches that have been shown to work. We also don't see innovation as the exclusive domain of the dreamer and the visionary.

We have the privilege of working with a large number of inspirational and ambitious organisations ranging from the NHS, major charities and public services through to innovators in the creative industries, human development, technology and science sectors. We've created the Innovation Skills platform to share the tools, approaches and insights that we have seen work across all these organisations and settings.

It draws on experience from across the world in order to provide tangible tools and skills - whether you're a start-up business, a local authority, a health service, or a charity. These include: how you finance ideas, how you use evidence and design, and how to scale ideas for maximum impact. 

The programme is delivered online as tools, methods and guidance and through practical workshops.

We'll be honing, refining and adding resources to the platform over the coming months, but we'd like to invite you to start using it now. Let us know what you think in the comments box below or by emailing openworkshop@nesta.org.uk. Tell us what you like, and what you think we need to improve.

The background

The transition to charitable status presented an opportunity to extend Nesta's reach to support a wider number of organisations and to operate internationally. The Innovation Skills platform is one component of this offering and, over time, we will be drawing further from outputs of other programmes and initiatives and using the platform to support communities of practice.