BIG South London Innovation Voucher: Exploring the need for the Crystalisr Platform Stack

Thu, 01 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

🏢 Lead Organisations

Lead Academic Partner: Dr Valerio Ficcadenti, London South Bank University (LSBU) – Business School
Lead Business Partner: Crystalisr Co-operative Society Limited (Dr David Randall)
Other Partners: Cordial World Foundation, Dr Vijak Haddadi, Barry James

📆 Duration and Funding

Start Date: 01 July 2021
End Date: 25 May 2022
Funding Programme: BIG South London Innovation Voucher Scheme
Funder: South London Partnership
Voucher Funding: £5,000
Business Match Funding: £5,000

🎯 Project Objectives

Study the need for an infrastructure hosted by Crystalisr cooperative platform, aiming at enabling local SMEs to access procurement opportunities.
Use text mining and AI technology to analyse procurement calls and social value needs among Anchor Institutions (AIs).
Investigate ‘social tokens’ to incentivise community participation on the platform and improve democratic involvement in local economic development.
Contribute to Community Wealth Building (CWB) by connecting SMEs with public and private institutions via a digital marketplace.

📚 Theoretical Framework

This project is grounded in the principles of Community Wealth Building (CWB), a transformative approach to local economic development that seeks to democratise the economy and ensure that wealth generated in a place stays in that place. At its core, CWB leverages the influence of Anchor Institutions—such as universities, hospitals, and local authorities—to redirect investment, procurement, employment, and asset ownership in ways that promote inclusive and sustainable local prosperity.

International Inspirations for Community Wealth Building

The project draws on internationally recognised models that have operationalised CWB principles in practice:

The Cleveland Model (USA)
Developed by The Democracy Collaborative, this model is centred on creating worker-owned cooperatives that serve the procurement needs of anchor institutions in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. It exemplifies CWB by institutionalising local hiring and democratic ownership structures, ensuring that the economic benefits of procurement circulate within the local community.
The Preston Model (UK)
Led by Preston City Council, this UK-based adaptation of CWB focuses on progressive procurement, local investment, and the development of cooperative businesses. It demonstrates how public sector anchors can rewire their spending to support local supply chains, build community assets, and foster a resilient local economy.
Caja Laboral & Mondragon Corporation (Spain)
Based in the Basque region, Mondragon represents a large-scale example of community-owned financial and industrial infrastructure. Caja Laboral, its cooperative bank, illustrates how local financial institutions can support long-term local development by aligning credit with social purpose, embodying CWB’s principle of local financial stewardship.

These cases showcase different but complementary pathways to building resilient local economies:

Cleveland demonstrates worker ownership and anchor-led demand for local services.
Preston highlights the power of anchor procurement and public policy.
Mondragon embodies financial mutualism and cooperative enterprise at scale.

CWB aims to redistribute wealth through local procurement, living wage policies, municipal enterprise, and community-owned finance.

🛠️ Methodology

Interpretivist approach using qualitative data from semi-structured interviews.
Conducted 9 interviews with 8 Anchor Institutions, covering 58 questions (open-ended + Likert scale).
Interviews explored: procurement strategies, software used, views on social value, and familiarity with CWB.
Data was analysed using thematic content analysis.

📊 Key Findings

Procurement is central: 88.8% rated it as very or extremely important.
Market fragmentation: There is no dominant platform. Tools used include Proactis, Delta eSourcing, ContractsFinder, and others.
Limited measurement of social value: Half of the organisations do not assess it; those who do use informal metrics or tools like EcoVadis.
Support for local SMEs: 75% stated local business support is important; 43% procure from SMEs over 100 times/year.
Barriers: Anchors struggle to identify and contact local SMEs. They rely on passive registration systems, creating informational silos.
Brokerage need: Crystalisr’s proposed brokerage service was welcomed to curate and connect prequalified SMEs with procurement needs.
Anchor Network: All interviewees endorsed the creation of a cross-institutional Anchor Network to coordinate and share best practices.

🧩 Narrative Conclusions

LSBU and Crystalisr successfully recorded the need for a digital platform to connect SMEs with Anchor Institutions.
The research confirmed the absence of a coherent anchor network and high demand for a unifying solution.
The CWB framework was embraced in theory, but implementation practices (e.g. social value metrics) remain underdeveloped.
The project validated the potential for Crystalisr to lead brokerage, training, and matchmaking initiatives in South London.
The study lays the groundwork for a social barometer, guiding the measurement and communication of social value in procurement.

🚀 Impact and Outputs

New Service: Service design for community wealth building integrated into the Crystalisr platform.
Collaborations: Established basis for the BIG Integrate project, building on the research findings to develop an integrated platform for community wealth building.

Innovation | Valerio Ficcadenti