Three experts from the fields of early years education, heat pumps and food innovation respectively have joined Nesta.

They will be joining a residency scheme with a difference; one which is designed to be highly hands-on and embedded. In creating this programme we wanted to translate the concept of an in-house resident from parallel fields such as the creative arts or academia and align it with the applied practice of an innovation agency.

That means our residents will be bringing us closer to frontline practice, challenging our understanding of the problems we are working on and injecting their expertise into projects in real time. We hope they will still find time for the reflection and creativity we all associate with classic ‘residency’ schemes too. We will be reporting back in the coming months to share reflections and learning from this experiment.

We’re thrilled to introduce you to our first cohort of three residents:

​Donna Gaywood has joined as a resident in our fairer start mission. Donna has a breadth of experience as a teacher and consultant working in early years settings, as well as recent work with the Early Years Coalition (a group of 16 early years sector bodies) to create its Birth to 5 Matters non-statutory guidance for the early years foundation stage. Donna’s projects at Nesta will include deepening our team's knowledge of early childhood education, helping to develop our communication strategy and creating personas to better understand the routines and challenges faced by early years professionals.

​Kevin Pocock has joined the sustainable future mission as a heat pump expert-in-residence. Kevin has 17 years of experience in the renewables sector, both from the perspective of a manufacturer and as an installer. He has founded two businesses focused on speeding up the adoption of renewable technologies and improving the processes and procedures in place across the sector. Kevin will be working with the team on a number of projects including helping to map and identify pain points in the heat pump installation journey, testing solutions and building relationships with project partners.

​Katharine Shipley has joined us as a resident in the healthy life mission. Katharine is an experienced product development and innovation manager with over 18 years’ experience across a number of retailers. She was previously Head of Innovation at Co-op Food and now runs a food development and innovation consultancy. Katharine will be helping the team to map stakeholders in the food sector and broaden our network of potential partners.

Nesta’s residency scheme is a paid, part-time engagement for three months and will be running twice a year. Get in touch if you would like to connect with our residents.