About Nesta

Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society.

Innovation After Lockdown - 23 Jun 2020 12:30 – 14:00

Please find a recording of the webinar for our event 'Innovation after lockdown' which took place on 23 June 2020.

During this event, we discussed Nesta’s blueprint for using innovation policy to build a fairer, more resilient economy after Covid-19. Over the coming months, Nesta will be exploring how innovation can help create a resilient and inclusive economy post COVID-19, and the windows of opportunity for lasting change. See the full Innovation after Lockdown report here.

Innovation will be vital to Britain’s economic recovery. But unless we change the way innovation is funded and supported, recovery will leave too many people and places behind. The second event of our series on innovation after Covid-19 drew on the analysis in our recent report The Missing £4 Billion and presented Nesta’s proposals for how innovation policy can become more place sensitive, more focused on spreading innovation to the wider economy and more prepared to steer innovation for the public benefit. 

We were joined by a panel of experts to explore how such an approach might enable politicians and policymakers to improve the productivity and resilience of lagging sectors and firms, better address regional inequality and ensure new technologies better serve the public interest. As well as analysing the report’s specific recommendations to policymakers, the panel tackled broader questions including:

  • How can we use innovation to improve the resilience and productivity of foundational sectors like social care?  
  • How might support for innovation be used to spur regional development?
  • How can we create an innovation system that better preempts and addresses the risks posed by emerging technologies?

Speakers

Dr George Dibb

Head of Industrial Strategy and Policy, Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, UCL

Sarah Doyle

Director of Policy and Research, The Brookfield Institute

Harry Farmer

Senior Policy Advisor, Inclusive Innovation, Nesta

Madeleine Gabriel

Head of Inclusive Innovation, Nesta

Dr Henry Kippin

Director of Economic Growth, North of Tyne Combined Authority

Sajeeda Rose

Chief Executive Officer, D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership

Maria Savona

Professor of Innovation and Evolutionary Economics, Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex