Engage with our views and ideas. Discover our latest news. Read our latest research insights and learning reports.
Engage with our views & ideas.
Find out our latest news.
Our latest research insights & learning reports.
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Hopes and Fears Cards for an Australian Context
Originally developed by Policy Lab in the UK Cabinet Office, hopes and fears cards use images to inspire people to express their objectives and concerns for a policy, project, or a problem.
06 Sep 22

Engaging the NHS as a voluntary / community sector organisation – shared challenges
The National Lottery Community Fund and the Innovation Unit are working together to connect and convene the Health Equality partnerships to generate and share learning, and communicate this learning to wider audiences.
01 Feb 22

A vision for change publication
How we can work together to make a lasting difference in towns, cities and communities
24 May 21

Learning from innovation in a crisis
13 Jan 21

What does the COVID-19 pandemic mean for young people’s mental and emotional wellbeing in Lambeth?
The new report, ‘What does the COVID-19 pandemic mean for young people’s mental and emotional wellbeing in Lambeth?’, captures the experiences and emotional lives of a group of young people living in Lambeth during the COVID-19 pandemic.
22 Dec 20

From Crisis to Renewal: Redesigning the mental health system around people and communities
The new report, ‘From crisis to renewal: Redesigning the mental health system around people and communities’, captures changes in the mental health system in response to Covid-19 and advocates for a new mental health vision shifting power towards communities.
16 Jul 20

An age-friendly Tāmaki Makaurau
Auckland Council commissioned Innovation Unit ANZ to bring to life key opportunities for system-level collaboration to make Auckland a more age-friendly region, based on feedback from older Aucklanders.
14 Apr 20

Ngā Kokonga Ngākau Perceptions and Experiences of Māori Heart Health in Te Tai Tokerau
The Heart Foundation of New Zealand commissioned Innovation Unit Australia New Zealand to lead a social innovation process in Te Tai Tokerau to explore how they might enable Māori to be screened for cardiovascular disease at a younger age.
29 May 19

Reimagining Education Together
This report from Innovation Unit in partnership with Big Change demonstrates how important it is for parents, teachers and pupils to be brought along, as well as the communities around them.
02 May 19

Local Learning Ecosystems: Emerging Models
The report, Local Learning Ecosystems: emerging models is part of the WISE report series, in this case in partnership with Innovation Unit, a leading innovation social enterprise.
30 Apr 19

The opportunities and challenges of ICT for learning
Innovation Unit in partnership Aga Khan Education Services (AKES) and Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) have been working with UNICEF’s regional offices in sub-saharan Africa to better understand the opportunities and challenges of ICT for learning on outcomes for young people.
06 Nov 18

Healthy High Streets Final Project Report
Finding ideas from the high street to make healthy eating easier for children and families.
23 Oct 18

Housing Instability in Tāmaki Makaurau
Auckland Council commissioned Innovation Unit Australia New Zealand to understand peoples’ experiences of housing instability to inform a cross-sectoral homelessness plan for Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland)
26 Sep 18

Radical Efficiency
15 Jun 18

People Powered Health: Health for people, by people and with people
15 Jun 18

Myths and Mechanisms of Scaling Innovations
15 Jun 18

10 solutions for 21st century healthcare
A collection of healthcare innovations that are beginning to answer some of the most challenging questions in healthcare.
06 Jun 18

10 Ideas for 21st Century Healthcare
The ideas in this booklet describe how radically different services might be achieved. They are some of the vital principles that should underpin 21st century healthcare.
06 Jun 18

Against the odds: successfully scaling innovation in the nhs
Innovation Unit and The Health Foundation have joined forces to call on system leaders and policymakers to do more to create the right conditions for innovations to scale in the NHS.
24 Jan 18

Human-scale at Scale: Cultivating new education cultures
Human-scale at Scale is a report based on a 10-week research fellowship, funded by Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. It explores how student-centred approaches to learning can scale and spread beyond their site of origin.
01 Nov 17

Department of Health and Social Care Named Social Worker
Between 2016 and 2018, Innovation Unit and the Social Care Institute for Excellence supported nine local authorities to develop, implement and evaluate a Named Social Worker approach.
18 Jul 17

Local Family Offer
When children are exposed to certain kinds of conflict between their parents it affects their mental, emotional and physical well-being, when they are young but also in later life. The importance of improving family relationships is clear. What is not clear is who should help, and how?
15 Jun 17

Children’s social care innovation programme
In 2014 the Department for Education (DfE) announced a two year, £100m innovation fund to support 53 bold new approaches to transform outcomes for children and young people in care. The success of the programme led to a second phase beginning in 2016, with £200m committed over four years.
06 Jun 17

Thrive
Thrive: schools reinvented for the real challenges we face argues that, given the real challenges we face in the world today, it is essential we ask what job we want schools to do?
01 May 17

Bloomberg Philanthropies European Mayors Challenge
In 2014, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced the winners of its first European Mayors Challenge, an ideas competition that encourages cities to come up with bold, inventive, and shareable responses to today’s toughest problems.
03 Oct 16

Greater Manchester Guide: Developing Asset Based Approaches to Primary Care
This is a practical guide for getting started and growing asset based care at scale.
16 May 16

Wigan Community Link Worker Service Evaluation
The Wigan Community Link Worker (CLW) service has been jointly commissioned by Wigan Borough Clinical Commissioning Group and Wigan Council with the aim of improving the health and wellbeing of local people through better connections to appropriate sources of support in the community.
15 May 16

How School System Leaders Can Create the Conditions for System-wide Innovation
This report produced in partnership with the RSA and the support of WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education) explores how school systems can create the conditions for successful innovation that transform outcomes for all learners.
01 Mar 16

From professional learning community to networked learning community
The world is becoming profoundly more knowledge-rich, and networks, in response, are now an increasingly significant organisational form. Characteristics of network-based knowledge and learning systems are paradigmatically different from the prevailing orthodoxies of the past.
02 Jan 16

People Powered Health: By us, for us
By us, For us: the power of co-design and co-delivery is one in a series of learning products which explain why People Powered Health works, what it looks like and the key features needed to replicate success elsewhere.
15 Jun 13

Cultural education in London: Making the Case for Change
Cultural Education in London: making the case for change presents the process and outcomes from a workshop held in Spring 2013 with colleagues from creative and cultural organisations around London.
08 Jun 13

10 Ideas for 21st Century Education
Around the world there is a growing global movement towards achieving the vision of 21st century education. 10 Ideas for 21st Century Education presents our view of what this vision looks like in practice.
06 Jun 13

21st century children’s centres
The Innovation Unit and the Pen Green Research Base were commissioned by the DfE (then DCSF) to organise a series of Think Tanks to ask some fundamental questions about children’s centres and their future.
06 Jun 13

10 Schools for the 21st century
Both collectively and individually we are heading for an uncertain future. The world is changing quickly and education must change with it.
06 Jun 13

The business case for people powered health
The Business Case for People Powered Health is intended for leaders, managers and practitioners across the health and social care system.
15 Apr 13

Learning a Living: radical innovation in education for work
Learning a Living is a timely, engaging and original contribution to the debate over the relationship between education, innovation, work and the workforce.
03 Jan 13

Work that matters: The teacher’s guide to project-based learning
A guide on project-based learning and advice for teachers, published by the Learning Futures Special Initiative in partnership with Innovation Unit.
15 Oct 12

The Engaging School: A handbook for school leaders
This handbook is designed for secondary school leaders who want their students to be much more deeply engaged in learning, their staff to be more engaging practitioners, and for their schools to be rich in engaging learning opportunities for the whole community.
08 May 12

Developing an Innovation Ecosystem for Education
In this paper, Valerie Hannon, Alec Patton, and Julie Temperley set out a comprehensive view of the context within which education systems and system leaders operate, and offer a practical approach to building in current and emerging innovative practices
05 Dec 11

PLACE: A case study
PLACE: Building a learning community without going to school is a case study part of a set of free, open-source publications.
15 Jun 08

Big Picture Learning
In 1995, Big Picture Learning burst upon America’s languishing public education system. This brainchild of two daring educators, Dennis Littky and Elliot Washor, has grabbed the hearts, hands and minds of young people, inspiring them to become: Lifelong learners. Productive workers. Engaged human beings.
06 Jun 08