Cardiff Capital Region (CCR) and management consultancy PPL have today released a report showcasing the impact of the Infuse Collision Space.
Born from the Innovative Future Services – Infuse programme and designed to build skills and capacity for innovative future public services across the Cardiff Capital Region, the Infuse Collision Space was developed to drive cross-sector collaboration to solve some of society’s biggest challenges.
Enabling collaboration
The ‘Collision Space’ builds upon Infuse to draw on expertise from the public, private, and third sectors and develop the skills and tools for action-driven innovation. Bringing together 77 stakeholders from 45 organisations, Infuse created a collaboration space for ideas generation, prototyping, and experimentation to address the challenge:
How can we support a just transition to net zero within public sector transportation across the Cardiff Capital Region?
Through the fast-paced programme, the pilot cohort developed their ideas and pitched to an audience of policymakers, business leaders, and funders in an ambition to secure funding and support to turn their idea into a reality.
Innovating through action
Over four core phases – Explore, Build, Test and Evaluate – the Collision Space encouraged participants to quickly move from ideas to action and test their experiments on the ground, understanding their potential impact and generating insights in real-time.
The experiments drew on the knowledge of subject matter experts to accelerate the journey to net zero through eight innovative experiments:
- Integrating the post-industrial landscape into a green active travel network for South Wales
- Supporting public sector e-bike fleets
- Standardised Travel Policy
- Knowledge exchange Wales online collaboration tool
- Lamppost Column Chargers
- Replacing diesel vehicles with EVs at no additional cost
- Fleet Decarbonisation Collaboration Community (FDCC)
- Local energy to unlock decarbonisation
The programme’s impact was measured against six core areas:
- Financial sustainability
- Speed of growth and innovation implementation
- Market access and creating networks that otherwise would not have existed
- Impact on the ecosystem: wider social and economic benefits
- Improved innovation skills and capability of the participants
- Impact against mission-specific goals for each programme
Kellie Beirne, Chief Executive at Cardiff Capital Region, said:
“I believe that the answers to our biggest societal, economic and environmental problems will come from cross-sector collaboration. The Infuse Collision Space creates the environment for this value to be realised.
“Having identified an opportunity for collaborative innovation to make an impact on the transition to net zero for public sector transportation, I am pleased to see the progress which has been made reflected in this report.”
Robert Jamieson, Principal Consultant at PPL, added:
“It has been fantastic to partner with CCR and wider collaborators from across the region on the Infuse Collision Space.
“We have learned what it takes to create the space for meaningful and impactful cross-sector collaboration across the public, private and voluntary sectors. We’ve seen local authorities, businesses and voluntary sector organisations join forces to tackle one of society’s biggest challenges, whilst building their skills and capabilities around innovation, coming up with new ideas, and nurturing them into fruition.
“These ideas have the potential to drive systemic change and impact across the system and we look forward to seeing where they go next.”
Louise Harris, CEO at Tramshed Tech and Associate of Infuse Collision Space, commented:
“The collaboration between the public, private, and third sectors is truly sector-leading, putting CCR at the forefront of public sector innovation and setting a new standard for how regions can drive meaningful change.”
The Infuse Collision Space is working on the proof of concept for several innovation experiments. If you have something to offer or would like to collaborate, please contact owen.wilce@cardiffcapitalregion.gov.uk.
Read the full Infuse Collision Space summary report here.
