1. We See
  2. We Spark
  3. We Shape
  4. We Shift

Opportunities & challenges

This stage is about asking the right questions, and getting a clearer picture through better data. Methods used here build understanding about the opportunities and challenges around a particular issue, helping to inspire new ideas.

Generating ideas

This is the stage where ideas are explored and developed. Ideas can come from all kinds of places. Methods used here encourage creative thinking, exploration and ways of sourcing ideas and learning from others.

Developing & testing

This stage is about testing ideas in practice. Finding out what works and what doesn’t is important so that plans can be refined and improved. Methods used here support experimentation and prototyping.

Making the case

This stage is about making the case that an idea works better than what’s already there, helping to attract the support of others. Understanding how to best use the evidence gathered through testing is important here.

Delivering & implementing

This stage is about moving the idea from concept to reality. The methods used here focus on embedding an innovation into everyday practice, which may involve cultural and behavioural, as well as organisational, shifts.

Growing & scaling

At this stage, there are a range of strategies for growing and spreading an innovation. Support for innovations at this stage involves providing access to funding, advice, networks and new opportunities.

Changing systems

This stage involves changes in the public and private sector over long periods of time, and interventions which drive the interaction of many elements and new ways of thinking. The success of some innovations sometimes depends on changing entire systems or developing new ones.

Opportunities & challenges

This stage is about asking the right questions, and getting a clearer picture through better data. Methods used here build understanding about the opportunities and challenges around a particular issue, helping to inspire new ideas.

Generating ideas

This is the stage where ideas are explored and developed. Ideas can come from all kinds of places. Methods used here encourage creative thinking, exploration and ways of sourcing ideas and learning from others.

Developing & testing

This stage is about testing ideas in practice. Finding out what works and what doesn’t is important so that plans can be refined and improved. Methods used here support experimentation and prototyping.

Making the case

This stage is about making the case that an idea works better than what’s already there, helping to attract the support of others. Understanding how to best use the evidence gathered through testing is important here.

Delivering & implementing

This stage is about moving the idea from concept to reality. The methods used here focus on embedding an innovation into everyday practice, which may involve cultural and behavioural, as well as organisational, shifts.

Growing & scaling

At this stage, there are a range of strategies for growing and spreading an innovation. Support for innovations at this stage involves providing access to funding, advice, networks and new opportunities.

Changing systems

This stage involves changes in the public and private sector over long periods of time, and interventions which drive the interaction of many elements and new ways of thinking. The success of some innovations sometimes depends on changing entire systems or developing new ones.

Innovation mapping

Innovation mapping uses new data sources, data science methods and visualisation tools to help policymakers navigate complex innovation systems, helping answer questions such as: “Where is innovation happening? Who is doing it? What do we do about it?” with unprecedented levels of precision and timeliness.

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Futures

Futures is an umbrella term for tools like horizon scanning, trend analysis, scenario planning and Delphi. These methods are used to analyse emerging trends, anticipate their impact and build stories about possible futures.

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Challenge prizes

Challenge prizes offer a reward to whoever can first or most effectively meet a defined challenge. Through a public competition, challenge prizes aim to tap into and engage the broadest possible community of innovators in the solving of a specific problem or challenge.

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Accelerator programmes

Accelerators provide intensive and time-limited business support for cohorts of startups, aiming to get them ready for investment more quickly than traditional incubators.

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Experimentation

An experiment is a way of trying something new while putting in place the necessary structures to find out if it works. There are a wide range of experimental methods suited to different purposes with varying degrees of rigour.

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Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a method of financing projects and businesses through many small donations from a large group of people. The funding process is usually facilitated by dedicated websites or online platforms.

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Prototyping

Prototyping is a low-cost, low-risk way of developing, testing, and improving ideas at an early stage. A model version of a product or service elicits feedback and remodelling before extensive resources are committed to implementation.

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Experimentation

An experiment is a way of trying something new while putting in place the necessary structures to find out if it works. There are a wide range of experimental methods suited to different purposes with varying degrees of rigour.

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Standards of Evidence

The Standards of Evidence model helps to answer an important innovation question: "Is an innovation doing any good? Is it even doing harm? Is the status quo just as good as the innovation?" It provides a robust framework for choosing the right approach to understand whether an innovation is working.

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Public and social innovation labs

Public and social innovation labs are teams, units and funds dedicated to structuring and embedding innovation methods and practice in government to tackle social and public problems.

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The 100 day challenge

The 100 day challenge is a structured innovation process, combined with coaching support. It enables frontline staff from across a public services system to collaborate and rapidly experiment with new ways of working, to achieve better results for people and communities.

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Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a method of financing projects and businesses through many small donations from a large group of people. The funding process is usually facilitated by dedicated websites or online platforms.

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Impact investment

Impact investment seeks to deliver positive social and/or environmental benefits alongside financial returns, by providing capital to organisations that develop products and services or use their operational infrastructure to make a positive difference to society.

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Scaling grants for social innovations

Scaling is the process of supporting high impact social ventures to reach more people and fulfil their potential, achieving greater influence. Grant finance is used to help accelerate this process for non-profit ventures.

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Anticipatory regulation

Traditional ways of regulating are struggling to cope with the pace of change in technology. Anticipatory regulation is an emerging approach that is proactive, iterative and responds to evolving markets.

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Helping innovation happen

There are many ways to help bring good ideas to life.

Nesta works to uncover, analyse and test new ways of supporting innovation from across sectors and around the world. These techniques, tools and processes are collectively known as innovation methods.

Although every innovation is a complex story of feedback loops and jumps, there are various structured stages that most innovations pass through. We represent these in the innovation spiral. Explore it to find out what we’ve learned along the way.