Read our first annual report as a charity and find out what we've achieved in our first year.

Nesta was set up 15 years ago to ‘bring ideas to life’. We help people turn great ideas into organisations that can grow and public services that really deliver, and over the past year alone we’ve supported around 170 organisations, with inspiring projects in fields as diverse as giving and education, healthcare and the media.

But we also try to improve the conditions in which innovation can flourish – by influencing governments, businesses, banks and others, and pioneering new ways of supporting innovators – from opening up public procurement to championing tools like crowd-funding and prizes. Plan I was a flagship for us – making the case for innovation-led growth, and showing the harm likely to result from the current squeeze on investment in innovation.

In our first year as an independent charity there is an urgent need to amplify innovation across the economy and society. Many of our systems seem stuck. Public services are caught between declining revenues and growing demands. Businesses are struggling to adapt to changing technologies and public attitudes. That’s why we need radical innovation –   and the courage to back ideas that the mainstream dismisses.

Find out how we got on in our first year.