Innovation Exchange

Do you have new ideas for tackling social problems?

We are looking for innovators from the third sector who have developed new ways of tackling social problems. Your innovative fledgling projects might be based within anything from a large national organisation, to a small local social enterprise.

Do you want to deliver or commission more innovative public services?

We are looking for public servants who want to work with the third sector to make the services they manage or commission more innovative.

Do you want to invest in fledgling social innovations that could achieve large-scale change?

We are looking for people who want to invest in innovations from the third sector that could tackle social problems on a large scale. You might be from the public sector, a trust, a foundation or any other type of private investor.

The Innovation Exchange is a programme where innovators from the third sector, public servants and social investors can collaborate to tackle specific social problems together.

The programme will offer online and offline opportunities for people to meet, learn from one another and grow innovations. It will also offer a tailored programme of support and development for the most promising projects.

The Prime Minister announced the role of the Innovation Exchange in a recent speech: "We are creating an Innovation Exchange to bring together the voluntary and public sectors to develop and share innovative practice."

The Innovation Unit won the bid to run the Innovation Exchange for the Office of the Third Sector. The Unit is working with acevo and Headshift on the 3 year pilot project. 

Send us your e-mail address to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   if you'd like to keep in touch with the Innovation Exchange.

Read the Innovation Exchange press release and get more details.

See the Cabinet Office website for more details about the Prime Minister's vision for the Third Sector. 

First two themes announced 

The first two themes, around which the Innovation Exchange will build networks, develop innovative capacity and seek to make connections with investors and commissioners, have been announced. They are:

Supporting independent living
Young people: the excluded, marginalised and the at-risk

Read the press release issued by the Cabinet Office on 8 October 2007:

Innovation Exchange launches with £200K fund for best third sector innovators

Visit the Innovation Exchange website for the latest news.

Director - Innovation Exchange 

John Craig has been appointed as Director of the Innovation Exchange. Read the press release issued on 18 December 2007.

Innovation Exchange Director Appointed

Online voting

The first two themes have now been chosen but we're interested to find out your views on future themes.

Now is the chance to vote in our poll for the issue you think should be included in Innovation Networks, which the Innovation Exchange will establish and support over the next 3 years. 

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