This short film below shows brilliantly how Festivals of Ideas work, and what participants think of them. An innovator advises, “don’t miss it, because… the people you need to see are under one roof. It’s a unique opportunity”. An investor says, “other investors should come here for one day because it’s going to save them 2 weeks’ work… definitely an investment worth making”.

Innovation Exchange – A FESTIVAL OF IDEAS from John Craig on Vimeo.

The event certainly does seem to have been a success, with a satisfaction rate of over 75% and most people meeting more than 5 people with whom it would be useful to be in further contact. In the coming weeks, we will be following up with the eight high-potential projects who took part as potential participants of the Green Next Practice programme. So watch the space!

We’d like to thank Be Inspired Films for a great video on the Festival of Ideas – if you want to make a video – we highly recommend this team!

By John Craig

The Learning Disability Development Fund Innovation Grant was so successful last year that they are running the grant again this year!

In order to further develop the market in Trafford for adults with learning disabilities, they are asking for bids between £500 and £40,000 to fund innovative pilots that:

• Support the development of support groups and user led groups to services to people with learning disabilities from Black and Minority Ethnic Communities
• Support development of Social Enterprise for Adults with learning disabilities and/or Autism
• Support increased participation in community life for people with complex needs and/or profound disabilities
• Provide meaningful learning opportunities which increase independence
• Provide Innovative short break options which are cost effective

If you have an idea that will help people with learning disabilities become active, visible citizens Trafford Council want to hear from you! They will also give consideration to projects that support Trafford’s Preventative agenda.

The deadline for bids is 6th September 2010, if you want to discuss any ideas before you submit a bid please feel free to contact at jenny.yates@Trafford.gov.uk or call her on 0161 912 1357.

Good luck!

Their education programmes have shown great results here in London and they want them to reach as many young people as possible. Therefore, they’re embarking on a social franchise of MyBnk’s programmes, enabling partner organisations across the UK to deliver our education programmes to young people in their community. They are able to offer a full package of training and ongoing support, as well as some seed funding to a partner organisation in the North West to be our first partner – paving the way for many more!

The deadline for applications to be their first partner is 10 September 2010. For more information and to request an application pack please contact Melanie Robinson on 020 7377 8770 or email melanie@mybnk.org.

The event certainly seems to have been a success, with a satisfaction rate of over 75% and most people meeting more than 5 people with whom it would be useful to be in further contact. The vast majority of innovators found that the event helped to generate significant interest in their work and the vast majority of social investors and public service commissioners identified projects that could help them meet their objectives. Over the next few months, we will be following up these connections as rigorously as we can.

The event showcased 8 high-potential projects that we encourage you to learn about and connect with. You can see presentations on their work below and videos of each project talking about their work here.  A short film of the day will also follow in due course.

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The Centre for Alternative Technology has launched zerocarbonbritain2030 (ZCB2030), a titanic project showing one possible route to an entirely carbon-neutral UK by 2030.  This ambitious and hefty report covers the systemic change needed across energy, transport, land use, the built environment and industry.  Each of the chapters of has been written by a collaboration of UK’s leading thinkers in their field including policy makers, scientists, academics, industry and NGOs.

A carbon neutral UK may seem an ambitious target, but it is something others around the world are pursuing.  Seattle City Council has included it in their legislative priorities this year; and Copenhagen and New Zealand are working towards this goal.

You can download the full PDF report here.

One of the most interesting areas in the report is the crucial role of behaviour change in zerocarbonbritain2030.  The herculean effort necessary requires a huge change to the majority of people’s lifestyles, for example reducing the amount of meat we eat by 20%.  Other than including an extensive theoretical chapter  about behaviour change, the report does not forward many policies or proposals to actually create this kind of collective action and mass behaviour change. 

Innovation Exchange hopes to support high-potential third sector innovations that can help to reduce carbon emissions or build society’s capacity to reduce carbon emissions. Through our Green Next Practice programme.  Behaviour change will be a huge part of this undertaking.  At our Going Green: Festival of Ideas we heard form a range of projects that simultaneously aim to green public services and manage to do so in an engaging way so that individual consumers can make the connection between their behaviour and environmental degradation without feeling lectured.  For example, Carbon Conversations is an inspiring, practical 6-session course on low-carbon living. It was recently featured in the Guardian as one of the 20 best climate change solutions.

The six 2-hour meetings engage people both emotionally and practically, helping them overcome the barriers often associated with making large carbon reductions. Members explore the basic climate change problem, their responses to it, their ideas for a low-carbon future and the four key areas of the footprint – home energy, travel, food and other consumption. Most members make reductions of 1 tonne CO2 during the course and develop plans to halve their footprints over a longer period.

We are now looking forward to holding our Going Green: A Festival of Ideas event with the shortlisted applicants – so watch the space!

a) Who do we turn to?
“Who is the right person in government to talk to about my work when I can demonstrate it does have a positive impact?”
“Time is a barrier to finding commissioners. Also, we don’t know how to have these conversations.”

b) Where is the data?
“I can’t find out how much waste this public organisation produces – it won’t admit to having any waste – so where does it all go?”

c) Lobbying; third sector innovators need support to be taken more seriously by the government – how do we engage the government with the third sector, it’s language, potential etc.
“Is the third sector tag a problem in this space?” How best to overcome this?

d) Integrated approaches – the need for projects that are looking at issues across the spectrum like WORP – spark cross-departmental interest

e) What do the coalition government’s promises mean? e.g. green investment bank

f) How do we incentivise public sector organisations and third sector innovators to green their services? E.g. through tax breaks

We have already recieved some great applications and have had interest from projects across the UK.  So hopefully, through our pogramme, the UK will begin to make sure that it does not miss out on a future of sustainable public services.

You can read her full article here and the work that Forum for the Future has been doing around for this.

Top tips:
a) Read about Innovation Exchange to understand the nature of our work
b) Read the learning paper which includes feedback from our previous participants (please note that the previous Next Practice programme did make some grants to the projects but the Green Next Practice programme will not be making any grants)
c) Think about what you would like your broker to do for you. What kind of relationships would you like us to broker? Who are the key people to connect wirh to help you develop your work? Where do you see this work in two years time?

We met quite a few green innovators at the SHINE Unconference last week and it was great hearing about their work. We’re really looking forward to finding out what the third sector is doing to green public services in different parts of the country. We noted the Government’s announcement last week that it is committed to reducing the entire carbon footprint of central government by 10 percent in a year which is excellent news! It’s a real opportunity for the third sector to help the government lead the way to a low carbon economy.

Remember the deadline to respond to the Call is Wednesday, 2nd June at 5pm. You can find the application form here. You need to email your application form to Raj Cheema at raj.cheema@innovation-unit.co.uk. (Tip: put the name of your project in the subject title of the email).

If you have any queries about the application form then feel free to get in touch with Raj on 020 7259 1368. Good luck!