Partnerships

Cabinet Office

The Office of the Third Sector (OTS) in the Cabinet Office are the primary funder of Innovation Exchange. In partnership with OTS, the Exchange is running a Next Practice Programme, supporting the development of a system of significant innovations in response to major social challenges. The programme focuses on supporting both independent living and excluded young people and helps fifteen projects, ranged across those two themes, to develop their work and to build alliances of supporters and collaborators that may, ultimately, be critical to their success.

Department of Health

The Department of Health is providing additional sponsorship of Innovation Exchange's work on independent living. This has enabled the Exchange to do more to support Next Practice projects in this area, providing additional bespoke consultancy, funding and brokerage support to help them develop and grow their work. It has also supported a series of Festivals of Ideas, each one in partnership with a regional Joint Improvement Partnership.

North-West Joint Improvement Partnership

In addition to Department of Health supported Festivals of Ideas, Innovation Exchange has worked with the North-West Joint Improvement Partnership to stage a Festival of Ideas looking at Better Mental Health. The event brought together 60 third sector innovators, social investors and commissioners of public services to indentify opportunities for innovation, and work together to realise their potential. The event was preceded by network-building and horizon-scanning to ensure that the right people attended and succeeded by the follow-up to drive real action and progress.