In the 1980s, the European Commission took a surprising initiative to create a model for excellent leadership and promote the model to European industry. Today the UK government is working on a similar project for excellent innovation leadership. The Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills (DIUS), the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR) and several private companies are in the process of developing a new model for excellence in innovation leadership. The measurement tool would support new and good practice in global innovation management. This will help organisations review their practice across the spectrum of people, skills, culture, systems and resources in order to understand and thereby improve their innovation capacity.

The new Innovation Assessment Toolkit allows organisations to review their strategy, management processes, networking, culture, delivery and learning within innovation by a series of one-on-one interviews with knowledgeable assessors using a framework of thirty questions.

A pre-prototype was tested on 29 financial services’ organisations in early 2008 using MBA students as assessors. This was met with a warm response with most participants declaring the exercise worthwhile. After further development, a prototype is completing a proof of concept trial with ten organisations. These include corporations such as a large aerospace company, an agrochemicals company, various SME’s, a continued education college, a leading university department, a primary health trust, and parts of DIUS and BERR.

Agreement has been reached to proceed to the next phase. Further product and market development work is being planned from April to August with 150 organisations.

Source: Davidson, Peter. Senior Innovation BERR, UK