Richard Halkett's Page

Thank you to all those who posted or emailed responses to the Call for Ideas. We also received full reports from the eight Mini Projects that were launched over the Summer. The NESTA Index team are currently digesting these. We hope to post them online for wider discussion by Friday 19th September, 2008.

On Wednesday, I was invited to make a presentation on the Index to the regular gathering of Regional Innovation, Science and Technology (RIST) leads for the RDAs and Devolved Governments. The meeting was held here at NESTA.

The meeting was very useful, focusing primarily on the practicality of the Index and its usefulness to policymakers. We were encouraged to move the concept of innovation 'out of the too difficult' box. There was a readiness to accept the compromise that would be inherent in… Continue

Today, Jon Kingsbury (Director, Creative Economy Programme) and I travelled to Birmingham to present to Advantage West Midlands. The primary topics of interest were the Index and NESTA's work on innovation in the creative industries - particularly the impact of digital technologies.

I presented a version of the Launch presentation (see 'Innovation Index library' discussion thread). The discussion was excellent, centring around how to capture 'wider' forms of innovation and how the work of the I… Continue

Tonight, we launched the Innovation Index project and announced a 'Call for Ideas' that will be focused on this website and remain open until 5pm on Friday September 12th, 2008. Each question in the ‘Call for Ideas’ forms a separate thread in the discussion forum area of this site.

The evening was opened by NESTA's CEO, Jonathan Kestenbaum, who welcomed the audience and introduced David Currie, Chair of Ofcom and Chair of the Index Advisory Board. David spoke on the topic of 'What gets measured… Continue