About Nesta

Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society.

Innovation Mapping Now

Nesta’s innovation mapping team seeks to transform innovation policy with new data sources, analytics and ways to present information. This report presents the problem we want to solve, the methods we use and how we work.

There is a glaring disconnect between technological innovation on the one hand, and productivity growth and societal well-being on the other.

Economic and innovation policymakers are seeking to fix it with ambitious missions, challenges and national strategies that align technology development with societal needs and make innovation more inclusive. Traditional data sources, with their static taxonomies, aggregate statistics and simple summaries of a complex economy fall short of these policymakers’ evidence needs.

Nesta’s innovation mapping team seeks to overcome these barriers with new, more detailed and timely data, powerful analytics and ways of presenting information. This report summarises what we are trying to achieve, our audiences, projects, methods and outputs.

  • Bigger investments on science and technological innovation are not being accompanied by productivity growth, inclusion and societal well-being.
  • A new wave of innovation policies is seeking to fix this disconnect with an approach that is more activist, directional and holistic.
  • These new policies need to be informed with timely and relevant data about emerging technologies, innovation systems and innovation impacts.
  • Nesta’s innovation mapping team seeks to deliver these data in a way that is user-driven, pragmatic, eclectic, open and human-centric.

Authors

Alex Bishop

Alex Bishop

Alex Bishop

Principal Researcher, Data Analytics Practice

Alex was building Data Science tools and libraries to increase the reproducibility, efficiency, and scalability of our Data Science work.

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Luca Bonavita

Luca Bonavita

Luca Bonavita

Head of Data Viz and Product Development, Data Science

Luca was the Head of Data Viz and Product Development for Nesta's Data Science team, focusing on the technical means to make data exploration intuitive and natural.

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Juan Mateos-Garcia

Juan Mateos-Garcia

Juan Mateos-Garcia

Director of Data Analytics Practice

Juan Mateos-Garcia was the Director of Data Analytics at Nesta.

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Adeola Otubusen

Adeola Otubusen

Adeola Otubusen

Junior Data Scientist, Data Analytics Practice

Adeola is a Junior Data Scientist in the Innovation Mapping team.

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George Richardson

George Richardson

George Richardson

Head of Data Science, Data Analytics Practice

George is Head of Data Science in Nesta’s Data Analytics Practice.

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Soraya Rusmaully

Soraya Rusmaully

Soraya Rusmaully

Project Manager, Innovation Mapping

Soraya is a Project Manager working on the European Commission Horizon 2020 project, EURITO.

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Konstantinos Stathoulopoulos

Konstantinos Stathoulopoulos

Konstantinos Stathoulopoulos

Principal Researcher, Innovation Mapping

Konstantinos worked as a Principal Researcher on Nesta's Research Analysis and Policy team.

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Russell Winch

Russell Winch

Russell Winch

Junior Data Engineer, Innovation Mapping

Russ was a Junior Data Engineer in the Innovation Mapping Team and worked on the development of data products and the implementation of a data production system.

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Hasan Bakhshi

Hasan Bakhshi

Hasan Bakhshi

Director, Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre

Hasan oversaw Nesta's creative economy policy, research and practical work.

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Joel Klinger

Joel Klinger

Joel Klinger

Data Engineering Senior Lead, Data Analytics

Joel is Nesta’s Data Engineering Senior Lead

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