Open Innovation Team

The Open Innovation Team is a cross-government unit that works with experts to generate analysis and ideas for policy, helping colleagues review evidence, engage experts, develop policy and evaluate impact. Through our university partnerships and training, we also help academics understand how they can work more effectively with government. Founded in 2016, our team of experienced officials has delivered over 150 policy projects for customers across government, including the Home Office, Cabinet Office, Ministry of Justice, Department for Education, DESNZ, Defra and others. To date, almost 2,500 experts from 930 organisations have contributed to our policy work. We offer- Policy analysis and advice: our team of experienced officials delivers 20-30 policy projects per year for government customers - Evaluation: we’ve created an Evaluation Services Unit to make it cheaper and easier for policy colleagues to commission the design and delivery of high-quality evaluations - Expert engagement: we organise online and in-person events to bring officials together with academics and other experts - Innovation: collaborating with academics and others, we experiment with new products and services that we think might be useful to government - University partnerships: we work closely with our university partners, involving them in our policy work where appropriate and delivering training and advice to their academics and students - Policy training: we deliver policy training to non-partner universities To find out more, or to talk to us about commissioning a project, please email enquiries@openinnovation.gov.uk