Between 2020 and 2023, UCL and the Local Government Association ran an online programme that brought together local authority staff and university researchers to work together on local net zero challenges.
What was the Net Zero Innovation Programme?
Between 2020 and 2023, UCL and the Local Government Association ran an online programme that brought together local authority staff and university researchers to work together on local net zero challenges. It equipped them with skills and resources for partnership working and provided an opportunity to develop a solution for their communities.
Why was the programme created?
The programme was created in response to a clear need: in 2019, many councils were declaring climate emergencies.
Academic researchers with technical expertise on climate and net zero were keen to collaborate with their local councils to develop tangible actions following these emergency declarations. However, councils found it challenging to access the skills and knowledge available in universities.
The Net Zero Innovation Programme (NZIP) provided a structured way for the two professional communities to effectively work together and form long-lasting partnerships.
Who is this case study intended for?
This case study is for anyone interested in how academics and councils can collaborate to tackle local policy challenges. It outlines the structure of the programme and documents what we learned from running the programme for three years.
These insights are highly transferable: a similar programme (or components of it) could be run for other key local authority priorities e.g. housing or social care.
The collaborators behind the programme
NZIP was co-created by three organisations. In addition, they each fulfilled specific roles:
- UCL Climate Action Unit: Delivered the programme using expertise in cross-sector collaboration and how the human brain responds to climate change.
- UCL Public Policy: Led the vision of the collaborative partnership, secured core programme funding and conducted evaluation.
- Local Government Association: Engaged and supported councils to take part in the programme, and secured grant funding for the local authority climate projects.
The programme structure: how it worked
We invited councils and academics to jointly apply to the programme with a climate challenge they wanted to collaborate on.
Over three years, a total of 36 partnerships tackled challenges ranging from altering internal decision-making practices to increasing engagement with residents, expanding local greenspaces, providing more renewable energy locally and reducing the impacts of heatwaves on schools and care homes.
Once accepted to the programme, participants completed three phases of activities to cultivate partnership working (Phase 1), develop a plan of action (Phase 2) and implement a solution (Phase 3).
Each partnership was awarded around £10,000 to finance its initiatives. They also benefited from peer support from the wider cohort and sector support from the Local Government Association.
- Phase 1: Whole cohort sessions focused on building capacity for participants to collaborate effectively and to prepare for the people challenges often encountered when working on climate change.
- Phase 2: Structured pair-working sessions for the participants to develop a deep understanding of their climate challenge and to develop an achievable plan to address it.
- Phase 3: 1:1 mentoring calls, action learning sets and further whole cohort meetings to provide support to participants as they implemented their projects.
Benefits of the NZIP model: according to participants
“Council processes and techniques have already shifted as a result of this project, plus the links made with the universities have been invaluable.
My favourite thing about the programme was being introduced to skills and techniques that can be applied to other projects.”
“Being part of NZIP has been useful and interesting; both from a professional development point of view (i.e. knowledge building) and for delivering positive outcomes for the council.
What we’ve got from this is a really, really good relationship of trust developing with the council. I’m noticing they’re asking our advice on things beyond this and introducing us to their networks.” said participant
(Source: evaluation surveys of participating academics and local authority staff, July 2022)
Design principles of the NZIP model
- Spend time understanding a challenge before trying to fix it.
- Focus on forming a collaborative partnership between the two professions (avoid transactional relationships).
- Encourage projects which ‘do’ something, rather than those which only produce a written output.
- Cultivate a community among the cohort of participants who can share best practice, collectively solve problems and replicate successful initiatives.
Lessons learned
For the organisers and coordinators:
- Opportunity to support a small cohort of partnerships each year if you want to do it well - providing peer and 1:1 support is time consuming but essential to success.
- Participants often come with a preferred solution - but it’s important to ensure both parties comprehensively understand the challenge first.
- Securing long-term funding to run a programme like this can be challenging - but it is possible to achieve a lot in just few years by creating open source tools and by scaling learnings.
For the council-researcher projects:
- Ensure you know what type of costs your project funding can be used for - some funders won’t cover staff salaries, for example.
- Be modest in your scope and ambition - £10,000 was a helpful kick-starter, but some partnerships looked elsewhere for further funding.
- Consistent partnership-working pays off - teams made the most progress on their projects when the same individuals met regularly.
How the programme was funded
Staff time to design and facilitate the programme was funded through an EPSRC grant & with Local Government Association support
Funds to deliver local climate projects were secured from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
Participants volunteered their time to join the programme of activities and work together over the course of a year.
Relevant links
Over three years, NZIP supported dozens of partnerships and their projects. There were many successes - here are just two we wrote about in depth:
- Growth mindset case study: How one NZIP partnership repurposed derelict land into food growing community spaces in Staines
- Partners in grime case study: How an academic and a government professional in Cambridgeshire built a tool to cut emissions from England’s waste sector
To find out more about the Net Zero Innovation Programme and the projects it supported, visit:
Contact details
Email: [email protected]