NESTA ‘Hidden Innovation’ report

Leon Cych over at the Flux blog points to a report which could be handy in the next stage of my thesis research. It’s by NESTA and entitled Hidden Innovation. Looking at six sectors including education, its main recommendations are that ‘the innovation that occurs in these sectors is often excluded from traditional measurements.’

Leon picks out a couple of interesting sections:

The education sector is notable for the extent of school-level innovation that does not reach a larger scale. Combating this will require more ‘D&R’, that is, more development-led experimentation by teachers that might lead to formal research work, rather than the other way around. For this to occur, such work needs to be better funded and supported, and schools and teachers need to be given incentives to engage in it.

?and:

Encouraging more innovation will require system-wide change that will only be achieved if re?ected in adjustments to existing accountability and inspection systems. These would need to develop to reflect the collaborative nature of innovation and the importance of locally-generated innovations as well as the implementation of top-down initiatives.

Finally! some recognition that all good things do not come from above; grassroots innovation is just as important, if not more important!