Working with the Open Innovation Team
Working with us if you’re a government official
Why work with us?
- Quality: our team has a long record of delivering high-quality work across a wide range of policy areas. Customer feedback is consistently excellent.
- External expertise: we review evidence, engage leading thinkers and distil insights that we can apply to the policy challenges we’ve been asked to work on.
- Ease of procurement: we’re part of government so there’s no need for a time-consuming procurement process if you want to commission us. It can be as easy as sending us an email.
- Value: we’re usually cheaper than external consultancies because we have lower costs and don’t need to make a profit.
We work on a project basis for teams across the public sector, not just central government. Officials come to us for help with the following:
- better understanding the evidence base for their policy area
- engagement with a more diverse range of experts
- fresh thinking, creative approaches or innovative ideas
- help framing their problems and defining solutions using the latest evidence
How to commission us
As a government team, we’re easy to work with. Our pricing is competitive as we operate on a not-for-profit basis. Commissioning us is straightforward. To get started, it helps if you can provide the following information:
- Your team and directorate: Let us know which part of the government you represent.
- Policy area: Briefly outline the specific policy area you need assistance with. This helps us tailor our approach to your unique challenges.
- Why the Open Innovation Team? We’d like to understand why you think our team can help. This allows us to align our expertise with your expectations.
- Required outputs: What specific deliverables do you need? For example, are you looking for a research summary, insights, evaluation, or expert analysis?
- Expected policy impact: Share your thoughts on the expected impact of this policy. This helps us focus our efforts on the most crucial aspects.
- Timeline: Let us know your desired timeline. We can usually complete the process within two weeks, but we’re flexible and can work more quickly if required.
After gathering this information, we’ll schedule an initial conversation to discuss how we can best help you with your specific needs and challenges.
Following our discussion, we’ll produce a scoping pack with suggested experts, the services you might find useful, and our costs. Once we’ve agreed on the work programme and the timeframe, we’ll ask you to sign a letter of engagement (an MoU) setting out the scope of the work and the price, and we’ll get started. This process usually takes no more than two weeks, though we can work more quickly if required.
Contact us at enquiries@openinnovation.gov.uk