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We recently completed the Summer 2014 investment evaluation. The Crossrail Innovation Forum ratified a further five (5) projects taking our total to 28 totalling over £375,000.   Details of each project can be found here   Below is the list of ideas that have secured investment in round 3: INV00426 SafeTime Temporary Works (feasibility) £0 INV00475 innovate18 App £15,000 INV00478 Digitised Red-line…

Earlier this year, I was approached by the FutureRailways to take part in a Best Practice Study that they were undertaking on innovation. I was invited to give my opinion on the following: What a “good” innovation culture for the rail industry should look like? What a successful culture which supports innovation looks like? What leadership…

We’ve spoken to many of you in the past year of “pinching with pride” – the act of seeing a good idea implemented on another site, and choosing to implement it yourselves effectively “pinching” it. However, some have taken the idea further by modifying it to enhance the idea and develop new innovative solutions across…

I joined the Innovate18 Project Team around April, with a remit to introduce an enhanced level of control to the portfolio of Invested Projects, but not too much control! From a Project Management perspective, the portfolio of projects presents some challenges, as we’re pretty much seed funding some great ideas, and the exact roadmap for…

Having recently celebrated the innovation programme’s official 1st birthday, the celebration can be extended as we have breached the 200 published ideas mark. This milestone means that well over a third of the ideas that are submitted are published for the whole of the innovate18 community to benefit from. This does not included the funded…

Last week, I was invited to meet with HRH The Duke of Kent and business leaders from throughout the British Commonwealth and present Crossrail’s innovation programme and discuss how Crossrail is obtaining societal – as well as economic – value out of innovation. The visit was organised by a new initiative called CSCLeaders created from…

Crossrail presented at the TfL technology innovation conference a few weeks ago and discussed the importance of leadership to nurture a culture that supports innovation. The conference launched the TfL innovation portal, showcased innovative technologies developed by TfL and was a platform to communicate their challenges for industry collaboration. The innovate18 team showcased the outcomes…

Since the start of the programme, innovate18 has invested in 23 ideas totalling over £336,000! Whilst some of the projects have been more straightforward than others to implement, the surge in numbers after round 2 has shown how much the maturity of the Innovation programme has developed within Crossrail, with 14 ideas invested in round…

Why would you put an innovation idea into the public domain and thus risk losing your IP rights? People at Crossrail often ask me this question. Even if you have not already signed away intellectual property rights to your employer (which is the norm these days), there are still good reasons why people might want…

  I’m pleased to announce that we have reached our 150th published innovation. The tremendous amount of effort from everyone across the programme have resulted in this fantastic milestone. All this in the space of under 7 months! We are also creeping close to achieving our 350th idea, and on target to publish 200 innovations…