About Innovate Oxfordshire
We help public sector organisations turn complex challenges into practical, evidence-based change.
From early-stage ideas through to delivery and evaluation, we support all stages of innovation, ensuring that projects and ideas lead to real outcomes.
Our focus is on helping organisations test, implement and scale solutions that improve services and deliver value.
What we help you do
- Turn complex challenges into clear, actionable solutions
- De-risk innovation before significant investment
- Deliver and test solutions in real-world settings
- Build the evidence needed to make confident decisions
- Scale solutions that deliver measurable impact
How we do it
Our model for delivering de-risked innovation across the public sector is: Define, Deliver, Demonstrate. This ensures that innovation projects are aligned to outcomes, tested in practice, and supported by clear evidence at every stage.
Define
We collaborate with our clients to shape a clear brief, including success criteria, risks and assumptions, so progress and value can be assessed from the outset.
This process ensures that innovation projects are tightly aligned to desired outcomes and consider upcoming changes to the public sector landscape.
Our team works closely with public sector organisations to provide evidence-led guidance on innovation implementation and policy development.
Deliver
The end-to-end implementation of innovation projects ensures that initiatives move from idea to outcome, from service design and modelling through to pilot programmes and scaled delivery.
This includes grant-funded programmes and the development of existing processes and services.
Continuous testing, learning and course correction ensures that what does not work is identified early and adapted before scale.
Demonstrate
Our monitoring and evaluation capabilities provide clear, evidence-led insight into what is working, what is not, and what should happen next.
We establish KPIs, design data capture approaches, and draw on internal and external data sources to build a robust understanding of impact.
This analysis supports confident decision-making and provides the evidence needed to scale successful solutions.
We offer a broad range of support centred around six core specialisms.
Innovation consultancy
Technical and project delivery expertise, research and analysis.
Monitoring and evaluation
Support with demonstrating the impact of your business.
Grant winning
Delivering, developing and implementing innovation grants.
Insourcing
How to optimise innovation to allow council services to be brought in house.
Strategic partnerships
Connecting you with our network of strategic partners so you can solve specific challenges.
Skills sharing
Build your team with our team for innovation support.
De-risking innovation
Innovation in the public sector often involves uncertainty around cost, delivery and outcomes. Our approach is designed to reduce that uncertainty at every stage:
Define
Clear definition at the outset ensures that projects are aligned to real needs and have measurable success criteria.
Deliver
Delivery in real-world settings allows solutions to be tested and refined before wider rollout.
Evaluate
Strong evaluation provides the evidence needed to make informed decisions about what to take forward.
Our approach is designed to help organisations avoid wasted investment, move faster, and focus resources on solutions that deliver real impact.
Bringing innovation into practice
We work at the intersection of the public sector, academia and industry, bringing together the right expertise to solve complex challenges.
Through partnerships and funded innovation programmes, we support the identification, testing and implementation of market-ready solutions in live environments.
Our Accelerator programme
We run the first local government accelerator programme, an initiative designed to foster innovation and drive positive change within local authorities.
Ready to put innovation into practice?