Office of the Third Sector Homepage
Last updated: 23 November 2008
The Innovation Exchange project aims to develop new approaches to provide third sector innovators with access to the people and potential capital they need to become more involved in public services.
The three-year pilot programme was first proposed in the public services action plan in response to the sector's concern that too often insights that could transform people's lives are lost because innovators struggle to find the advice, support and contacts they need to advance and develop their ideas.
Phil Hope, the Minister for the Third Sector, announced in July 2007 that a consortium including the Innovation Unit, the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (acevo) and Headshift had won the £1.2 million contract to deliver the pilot for the Innovation Exchange.
The Exchange offers innovators online resources including information, contact with other innovators and contact with appropriate sources of investment. Beyond this the programme is designed to offer tailored support to the most promising innovators, including training and guidance. This will help innovators to realise their ideas and improve services for those who use them.
The programme was launched on 8 October 2007 at the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA). It will begin by focusing on excluded young people and adult social care, as these are areas where there is a huge untapped potential in the third sector. Baroness Thornton will chair the programme.
The action plan also committed the Office of the Third Sector to work with the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), the UK’s innovation agency, to build on the work of the Innovation Exchange and develop approaches to stimulate and support innovation in the third sector.
NESTA have agreed to contribute an additional £200,000 to the Innovation Exchange to support the development of the best innovations identified by the Exchange. The fund is likely to provide both financial support and support in-kind to promising innovations and innovative organisations, while providing additional incentives to engage with the Innovation Exchange.