Nesta

Nesta is a UK-based 'innovation' charity. It describes itself as a 'hub for innovators the world over'.

Its main focus in on reforms to public services, including the NHS and the education system. For example, it supports the widespread reform of schools, and in particular the greater use of technology to teach.

Its CEO since 2011 has been New Labourite Geoff Mulgan.

History

Nesta, which stands for the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts, was established by Tony Blair's government in 1998 to promote 'creativity, talent and innovation'. The new public body was originally funded by a £250 million endowment from the UK National Lottery. The endowment is now kept in trust, and Nesta uses the interest from the trust, as well as donations from other sources, to fund its projects.

Within six months of the 2010 general election, David Cameron's Conservative-led government announced that Nesta would cease to be an executive non-departmental public body and become a charity, which it did on 1 April 2012.

Lobbying for Education Reform

Since its inception, education reform has been a key focus of Nesta's work. It defines this a providing support for 'inventive ideas in teaching and learning, aiming to foster creative ability and understanding of science, technology and the arts.' Its work on education reform includes research, investments and practical programmes.

Lobbying for more technology in teaching

Nesta supports the digitisation of education.

It is one of many organisations that believes that the current education system is failing to equip children with the skills they will need in the future (often referred to by reformers as '21st century skills' agenda, although this is often ill-defined). Teachers, it argues, also need to incorporate more technology in their teaching.

Next Gen. report: lobbying tool for technology interests

Nesta's report, Next Gen. (2011) is described by education reformers in the UK as a ‘landmark’ report.

It was commissioned by culture minister Ed Vaizey as a review the future skills needed by the UK’s video games and visual effects industries. Ian Livingstone, head of gaming lobbying group UKIE led the six-month review with Nesta.

The report was part of a wider campaign by technology firms to get computer science on the curriculum and more technology in schools. The campaign had the support of UKIE, of which Microsoft is a member, and others entering the education technology space, including: Google, TalkTalk, Facebook, the IT lobby group Intellect, the British Computer Society, the Education Foundation and others like the Guardian Media Group.

Livingstone explained that gaming was used as a poster boy for the skills review because of its status as a ‘high-profile rock’n’roll industry’. In reality the campaign was acting in the interests of this ‘broad coalition’.

The central message of Next Gen. was unequivocal and strikingly similar to the messages of education reformers in the US and elsewhere, including Google's Eric Schmidt: the consequences of not reforming the UK’s education system according to their recommendations would be devastating for the UK’s high-tech industries. ‘Unless we act quickly, we are in danger of losing out,’ it said.

It made a number of recommendations:

• computer science should be included on the curriculum. Just months after Next Gen. was published, UK education secretary Michael Gove endorsed computer science as an important academic school subject.
• teachers should be trained to teach computer science.
• video games should be used to draw pupils into STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths). The report played up the benefits of video games to teach, while ignoring the mixed results from the few trials conducted.
• central repository of the best video games for teachers. In essence, a marketing tool for educational games makers.

As if to underline its role in kick-starting an ed-tech revolution in schools, Nesta, supported by the same coalition of technology interests, followed up with a series of reports, all of which called for more technology to teach and strongly advocated the need to redesign education on digital lines. Nesta's Decoding Learning report (2012), for example, champions digital technology in the classroom.

Next Gen. and subsequent publications appear, therefore, as lobbying tools for technology firms with a clear, vested interest in digitising learning, as well as enthusing a new generation of coders.

Other digital education activity

• Flipped Classroom: working with 12 secondary schools across England and Scotland to investigate the impact of an approach to ‘Flipped Learning’ on mathematics teaching.
• Remote Tutoring: exploring the potential of remote one-to-one tuition to support primary age children at risk of underachievement in mathematics.
• Visible Learning: exploring the potential of real time captioning and transcripts of lessons to support teachers’ professional development.
• Make Things Do Stuff: platform with tools for children to 'make and share digital things'.

Nesta investments in Edtech

• Digital Makers Fund: funding for innovations that aim to significantly increase the number of young people participating in digital making. Investments include: Code Club, to which it gave over half a million pounds in 2015, CoderDojo-Scotland, Printcraft, Technocamps, Technology Will Save Us
• One Day Digital events for teachers in Scotland on digital making for teachers.

• Nesta Impact Investments is a fund used to support social ventures. It has invested in a number of education technology startups, including: CogBooks (adaptive learning online platform); Digital Assess (online assessment tool); and Movellas, (online story sharing site).

Targeting Policy-Makers with the Edtech message

Nesta's Future Shock event for policymakers, which looks at trends and technologies that Nesta thinks will shape the UK and its economy over the next few years, in 2015 presented digital learning as a policy idea for the new Government. Among its recommendations were 'developing a kite mark for digital education technology', and 'adding digital making to the national curriculum'.

External Lobbyists

• Portland PR (in the run-up to the 2010 general election)
• Edelman (c2005)

Contacts

Website: http://www.nesta.org.uk

Address: 1 Plough Place, London, EC4A 1DE