Transformers

Author:
Nicola Bacon, Nusrat Faizullah, Geoff Mulgan and Saffron Woodcraft

Year published:
January 2008

Download:
Transformers 3MB
Making the most of local innovations (Working paper) 489 kb

 

Description/aims

Transformers – how local areas innovate to address changing social needs explores why some places innovate more effectively than others. Taking a series of case studies – drawn from the UK and internationally – as a starting point, this report draws some fascinating conclusions about the factors common to success. Above all, it clearly shows that innovative capacity can be nurtured, even in unpromising circumstances.

Overall, three critical factors are identified as essential to successful innovation – the will to change, strong internal capacity, and external resources and feedback. This report builds a strong working model based on these three factors, and shows how it can be applied to a variety of situations, from community organisations to frontline services.

Recommendations

A valuable discovery to come out of this research is the absolute importance of innovation; although sometimes treated as a luxury, evidence clearly shows that it’s essential if communities are to flourish.

To manage this, local governments need to include the assessment of innovation within their current performance frameworks. Rewarding successful new approaches should be as important as assessing whether targets are being met.

A main finding from the case studies is that local areas can instigate effective change through building collaborative networks, and linking people from different organisations to share information and ideas. Organisational capacity therefore needs to be strengthened. For example, by focusing on leadership skills and employing social network analysis (SNA) to diagnose, and enhance, the capacity for innovation.

Access to external networks of money, people and skills must also be improved. And local government, public agencies and voluntary organisations need better access to existing resources. Current support is patchy, ranging from courses on creativity and seminars on improvement to peer learning networks, and only weakly grounded in evidence about what works.

Impact / Benefit

In identifying what makes for successful innovation, this report paves the way for organisations to achieve greater success across the board. With a better understanding of the issues involved, local areas will be able to respond more effectively to challenges such as ageing, climate change, poverty and competitiveness.

There will always be places in relative decline and particular services facing difficulties. But, with a more mature system of local innovation in place, local areas will be able to move more quickly from decline to rebirth.