Net Zero Innovation Programme: A UCL and Local Government Association Collaboration

Delivered through a collaboration between the Local Government Association, the national membership body for local authorities, and UCL, the Net Zero Innovation Network brings together local authorities, universities and other stakeholders to address climate challenges at the local level, and seek routes to achieve council’s net zero commitments.

The Net Zero innovation Network is open to researchers, academics and policymakers working to address local net zero challenges as a forum for open discussion and collaboration.

To join the Net Zero Innovation Network on LinkedIn please contact climate@local.gov.uk

Introducing the Net Zero Innovation Programme

Across the UK, local authorities are declaring a climate emergency, seeking to lead action at a local level to reduce carbon emissions, increase biodiversity, transition to net zero and ultimately improve the quality of life of their residents and the local environment.

We believe that the varying expertise of local authorities to respond to the climate emergency creates a clear opportunity for engagement and knowledge exchange with the research community, as well as for delivery of evidence directly in to policymaking and practical delivery at the local level.

The Net Zero Innovation Programme brings together partnerships of researchers and climate change officers from councils across all the regions in England, providing support to work collaboratively to define and co-create challenges, and the time and funding to work on their problems towards achieving local net zero targets.

The 2020 Net Zero Innovation Cohort
In 2020, the Programme supports a cohort of 12 research/council partnerships on their net zero journeys.

Project	Council	University
Energy	Barnsley Council	Leeds Beckett University
Procurement Carbon Calculator	Cambridge Council	UCL
Supporting Schools	Colchester Council	Univesrity of Essex
Public Health	Cornwall Council	Univesrity of Exeter
Impact of Home Working	Durham Council	Univesrity of Durham
Care Home Energy Efficiency	Hertforshire Council	Univesrity of Hertfordshire
Community Finance	Lewes and Eastbourn Councils	University of Sussex
Housing Retrofit and Jobs	London Borough of Lambeth	London South Bank University
Modelling Housing Retrofit	London Borough of Sutton	UCL
Decarbonisation Training	North of Tyne Combined Authority	tbc
Community Engagement	South Gloucester Council	University of West of England
E-bikes Scheme	Worcester City Council	University of Worcester

The aims of the Net Zero Innovation Programme

Support partnerships between councils and the higher education sector to develop partnership and coproduction skills through a series of facilitated training sessions.
Provide funding, space, time and opportunity for researchers and local authorities to co-create practical responses to local-level challenges in reducing carbon emissions.
Expand partnership networks between councils and universities across the whole country.
Showcase how universities and local authorities can work in collaboration on adaption and mitigation strategies at the local and regional level as the United Kingdom prepares to host COP26 in November 2021.
Offer support to all councils and universities not on the programme through sharing lessons on webinars, blogs and podcasts.
Support the cohort to share their learning, providing support to a greater number of council and university partnerships over time.

Read more about the programme’s pilot workshops held in April 2020 on the Policy Postings blog:

If you have any questions about the Net Zero Innovation Programme please email isabel.bennett.14@alumni.ucl.ac.uk

Timeline and milestones

Date	Milestone
October 2020	Official launch of programme
October 2020	Partnership development workshop webinars Three two-hour sessions designed to build the foundations of partnership working techniques.
November 2020 10.00-12.00 on: 9 Nov 16 Nov 23 Nov	Co-production Sandpits A series of three two-hour sandpits to co-produce and refine projects. An additional drop in session for project teams will be offered on 30 Nov 10.-00-12.00
January -June 2021	Project delivery Development and delivery of collaborative projects.
July 2021	Reporting, evaluation, dissemination and next steps The cohort will reconvene for a final series of activities to pull together the outcomes of project work as well as learning gained throughout the process and to prepare and disseminate final outputs. This will include the further support workshops to help people in other councils and universities to implement a similar project.