Innovate UK:
Women In Innovation
Inspiring engagement by featuring role models
Innovate UK believes that disruptive and world-changing innovation can only occur when diverse-minds meet. Previously, just one in seven of their applicants for business support and funding were women. The team knew this needed to change.
H+K London ideated and developed a strategic approach to engage and celebrate the ground-breaking female innovators of today. The team shinned a spotlight on the women at the forefront of UK innovation, the resulting Women In Innovation campaign used the stories of these inspiring women to remove a crucial barrier to engagement; a lack of diverse and accessible role models.
To directly address the engagement barrier of a lack of diverse and accessible female role models, H+K London proposed a plan to showcase these female innovators through a stereotype-shattering partnership with Getty Images and photographer Amelia Troubridge. The resulting photography series highlighted the many identities of these female innovators; from engineers to adventurers, scientists to mothers. The 12 portraits were hung in London’s Getty Images Gallery and the Women In Innovation exhibition opened to the public for a two weeks period.
The campaign drove 307-million media impressions with 97 pieces of coverage, the Women In Innovation campaign led to an 75% increase in female-led applications to Innovate UK. Following the two week exhibition, the portraits were requested by UN Women (The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women) and the Parliament of England.
