The Public Services Innovation Hub at Edinburgh Futures Institute brings together organisations, researchers, practitioners and innovators working to address complex public service challenges and explore new approaches to change.
Our approach is relational, interdisciplinary and systems-focused. We connect expertise, knowledge and experience across organisational and sectoral boundaries, creating opportunities to challenge established thinking, develop new ideas and build collaborations that respond to real-world challenges.
The Public Services Ward: At the heart of the Hub
The Public Services Ward provides a physical home for a growing community of organisations working to innovate and influence change across public services.
Partners co-locate within EFI’s wider innovation ecosystem, bringing their own expertise, networks and activities while actively contributing to a shared environment for collaboration and learning.
Through co-designed events, workshops, knowledge exchange and joint activities, partners help bring the Hub to life, creating connections between organisations, academic colleagues and the wider public service system.
These relationships also create opportunities for partners to contribute to academic programmes through guest lectures, collaborate on student projects and offer internships. This connects students with real-world public service challenges while bringing fresh thinking and emerging talent into partner organisations.
The Hub extends beyond the Ward, connecting with wider public service networks and EFI’s Travel and Tourism, Creative Industries, and Finance and FinTech Wards to explore shared challenges and opportunities for cross-sector innovation.
From connections to opportunities for change
The Hub creates opportunities to:
- Connect expertise and perspectives across academia, public services, communities, government and industry.
- Co-design activities and exchange knowledge through events, workshops and conversations that stimulate new thinking and shared learning.
- Engage students and academic programmes through guest teaching, student projects, internships and applied learning.
- Explore complex challenges through systems thinking and collaboration across organisational and disciplinary boundaries.
- Catalyse innovation and partnerships by identifying shared interests and connecting people, ideas and opportunities for research and collaborative action.
- Strengthen collaborative leadership by sharing practical approaches to building relationships, navigating complexity and working effectively across boundaries.
Innovation in action
The Hub connects a growing community of organisations and initiatives exploring new approaches to public service challenges.
This includes the Scottish Prevention Hub, a strategic partnership between EFI, Police Scotland and Public Health Scotland working to advance prevention and public service reform across Scotland and The Regenerative Futures Fund.
Our work on collaborative leadership, including the Four Principles for Collaboration, also contributes research-informed approaches to help people and organisations work across boundaries and navigate complexity.
By connecting the innovation activity of our partners with the University’s research, teaching and wider networks, the Hub creates opportunities for new relationships, collaborations and ideas to develop into meaningful action.
