Making innovation stick: Online resources
This time last year I wrote this post about the challenges of how innovative pilots can create systems change. I used the lens of socio-technical systems to explore how niche innovations progress to become embedded as business as usual within systems and organisations.
This week I discovered that the reports this work was based on are available online. These were written with my colleagues Emily Garden, Nichola Davies, Julian King, Kate McKegg, and Aaron Schiff.
The background piece is the evaluation report for the Signature Programme, which explored the learning and impact from four innovative road safety projects:
Behind the Wheel supported young people and their whānau in Māngere, Auckland, to become safe and fully-licenced drivers.
Te Ara Mua - Future Streets trialled innovative street design process in Māngere’s urban centre, measuring impacts on safety indicators and the uptake of active transport modes.
Visiting Drivers sought to improve the safety of and for visitors to New Zealand, based primarily in Southland, Otago and the West Coast.
The Eastern Bay of Plenty rural road safety case study involved rural road safety improvements on higher-risk roads, allied with a community dialogue on road safety.
Drawing from the varying successes and lessons of these projects, we also developed a future-facing guide for people working in road safety innovation. Innovating Road Safety: Lessons for transport systems provides practical tools and processes; from key elements for successful partnerships in innovation projects, to how to foster a dynamic community of practice. Infographics (such as the one pictured below) draw together the key themes, and hyperlinks and a comprehensive reference list point to further resources and reading.
We have both a detailed guide and a summary document available. The guides are there for advice and ideas, not the final word on innovation. Their uses will be as varied as the applications of innovative approaches in road safety.
We point to four key elements of successful innovation: collaboration and partnerships; people-centric approaches; communities of practice; and building innovation capacity.
The reports are available in the links above, and also from the Innovating Streets website led by Waka Kotahi – the New Zealand Transport Agency. It’s well worth checking out the site for its advice and guidance on street innovations.
I’ve also updated the original blog post to include references to these reports.
Our thanks to ACC and NZTA for commissioning this work.
