This paper explores how learning and teaching innovations undertaken by externally funded projects, with a fixed remit and lifecycle, can be integrated successfully into institutional educational developments. The example and methods of one particular project, in embedding its work within and relating it to the context of wider, nationally-promoted educational designs, is utilized to illustrate the possibilities for fostering institutional change. Such change relies upon working to promote a climate whose norms support a culture of trust, where team-working can forge a broader ownership of innovation