Lizzie Cain
Head of Learning
As Head of Learning, Lizzie holds responsibility for overseeing and developing Innovation Unit’s learning portfolio, utilising learning methodologies in the service of meaningful change. She has led our work with partners including the National Lottery Community Fund, Sport England, the NHS Confederation, and the Health Foundation.
Lizzie’s work is grounded in people and relationships, supporting the development of meaningful partnerships between those with different forms of lived/living and learned experience, challenging traditional hierarchies of evidence. She is passionate about building sustainable cultures of learning within organisations and projects, and facilitating the sharing of learning across sectors, settings and place.
With an academic background in social policy and a decade working for charities including The Reader Organisation, MS Society and BookTrust, Lizzie brings a diversity of experience with a particular focus on participation and inequality. Prior to joining Innovation Unit, she was part of the small team behind Co-Production Collective at University College London, a pioneering community at the forefront of championing and developing co-production practice across research, policy and services. She has worked as a learning partner with organisations including Camden Council and National Voices, developed approaches to co-evaluating alongside people with lived experience, and facilitated numerous co-creation and training workshops for organisations across the UK. She is also on the board of the anti-poverty charity Z2K.