Sarah Cox

About

Sarah is Innovation Missions Programme Lead for Innovation SuperNetwork and has 13 years of expertise in design-driven innovation and systems redesign. She designs and leads innovation missions to build working relationships across industry, local government and research institutions to tackle priority areas such as Health and Wellbeing, and a Net Zero transition. These programmes create new value chains and clusters of activity across key supply chains, and provide the funding and framework to rapidly test and adopt a range of solutions most needed to deliver impact and support systemic change. She also has expertise in developing design-led innovation skills in individuals, and in building cohorts of innovators to embed design capacity in their organisations and networks to better tackle complex problems and develop sustainable solutions. These have been shortlisted for Learning and Development awards, for example her Design-Driven Innovation Champions course was recognised by the Utility Week Awards. Sarah has also built expertise in tracing the impact of systemic change initiatives like innovation missions and ecosystem development programmes beyond traditional metrics that miss much of the value that design-driven programmes deliver. Her latest work in this area includes co-developing an impact toolkit (funded by the ESRC) with funders and local government, to present alternative metrics to quantify and trace the impact of such interventions.

Organisation

Northern Health Futures (NortHFutures)

The Northern Health Futures (NortHFutures) Digital Health Hub aims to enhance health and wellbeing across the North East and North Cumbria region of the UK. The hub facilitates responsible research and innovation in healthcare technologies (health-tech), supported by inclusive digital skills sharing, training, and making connections. We take a people-centred approach and are committed to humanising health-tech by championing equity, participation, and investment across the region. We aim to create an inclusive environment where everyone, from health and social care professionals and industry leaders to community organisations, advocacy groups and academic researchers, can come together to collaborate, innovate and share insights and experience.