Understanding innovation has allowed us to explore and develop programmes that enable others to be more innovative. It is through mapping and examining the conditions that allow innovation to flourish that we have become advocates and supporters of those in Wales who have new ideas.
Our Innovate to Save programme is the best example of enabling innovation to date. Beyond the financial support, our programme managers and researchers worked beside our projects to support them in developing, implementing, and evaluating their ideas. This informed nurturing of ideas has given a broader range of sectors in Wales to experiment and have a ‘safe place to fail’.
Beyond supporting specific projects, we are building new programmes that will take the lessons we have learned and help enable systems changes across the public sector. We believe that enabling innovation can and should go beyond one-off projects, and should help lay the foundation for a new generation of confident, capable innovators in the Welsh public services.
