I’m really excited to share that Silvia Molino (Silvia Molino | Social Finance) and I (Gary Johnston | Social Finance) have recently come together to form the new Research & Innovation team at IPS Grow. Our focus is simple: helping the IPS community use evidence, learning, and lived experience to strengthen practice and make IPS even more effective for the people it supports.

Research and innovation have always been part of IPS Grow’s story, but this year we’re stepping it up. We want to build stronger links between insight and day to day delivery, turning data and experience into something practical, human, and genuinely useful for frontline teams. Research, for us, shouldn’t live just in a report – it should live in real IPS practice.

Silvia has already started conversations with services and staff across the country as part of our Race Equity Research Project, exploring how IPS teams understand and embed equity in their work and where more support could help.

Alongside these projects, our priorities for 2026 include testing new approaches for Youth and Homelessness, exploring AI in IPS, exploring Return on Investment evidence for IPS, and strengthening International Collaboration so England continues to learn from and contribute to the wider IPS community.

You can find the full overview of our plans here:
Research & Innovation at IPS Grow: Our Focus for 2026 – IPS Grow

If you’re active in the research space, we’d love to hear from you!

We are looking to connect with others working across IPS research and innovation around the country, so we can share ideas, learn from each other and make the most of the work already happening. By bringing these efforts together, we can strengthen our collective impact, drive innovation in IPS practice and ideally achieve better outcomes for the people we support. 

Get in touch with us here: support@ipsgrow.org.uk.

We’re really looking forward to sharing what we learn and learning from you, too!