publications

A collection of reports and papers. 

Innovation labs and teams: a practice guide

This practice guide shows what innovation teams and labs do, and provides a practical introduction to establishing and running a new team or lab.

i-teams: The teams and funds making innovation happen in governments around the world

This report tells the stories of 20 teams, units and funds established by governments and charged with making innovation happen. They work across the spectrum of innovation – from focusing on incremental improvements to aiming for radical transformations.

from good intentions to real impact: rethinking the role of evidence in education businesses

This report explores the role of evidence in education businesses, and how impact measurement can play a more central role.  I

Evaluation of project oracle

The independent evaluation shows that despite being at an early stage of development, Project Oracle is well placed to make a real impact on decision making practice surrounding youth services in London.

what should the what works network do?

This paper recommends five things the What Works centres need to do to ensure they maximise their impact, and avoid the mistakes of past evidence initiatives.

Making evidence useful: The case for new institutions

This paper outlines why the ‘What Works Network’ evidence centres are needed and the role they will play in policy making. 

Systems innovation discussion paper

Various perspectives on the potential for systemic innovation to help tackle some of the key challenges the UK currently faces

why we need to create a 'nice for social policy'

This paper outlines why we need to explore a centre – or a network of evidence centres – which help to institutionalise evidence in the decision making process. This led to the UK Government creating the What Works Centres. 

Innovations in prevention

This paper introduces the concept of prevention as a method to avoid costly harm, details the current spending on preventative measures, and outlines the stages involved in developing a preventative strategy

ten steps to transform the use of evidence 

The 10 things needed to improve the generation and use of evidence, from debunking the myths of RCTs, enabling innovation and evidence to co-exist, through to changing how we deal with failure and negative findings. This report coincided with the launch of the Alliance for Useful Evidence. 

standards of evidence 

This paper provides an overview of the Nesta Standards of Evidence, an approach used to measure the impact of a range of our practical innovation programmes and investments. The frameworks aligns the stages of innovation with rigorous evaluation methods.