Social Innovation Lab

Social Innovation Labs are an emergent framework practiced by different types of organizations that includes governamental, non-profit, for-profit and a mix of them all. The key aspects of what constitute labs and the methodologies used by them can be a powerful framework for those seeking social innovation.

Collaboratio Helvetica presents Social Labs as a process inspired by Zaid Hassan's understanding of Social Laboratories that follows the U-journey after MIT’s Theory U and integrates diverse methods, tools, practices along the way (check out our toolbox). It’s a format designed to address complex problems like those addressed in the Sustainable Development Goals. Solutions coming out of this process are meant to tackle the root causes of a challenge and have systemic impact, rather than fight symptoms. 

In order to support a catalyst in the process of co-initiating a Social Innovation Lab, Collaboratio Helvetica  have developed this inspiring canvas as a visual aid to your thinking and exploring. We will be covering how catalysts use this canvas in future blogs. 

This blog aims to give a wider view of how this framework is used across the globe. This body of knowledge is excerpted from my research on the topic while attending the first cohort on Social Innovation at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. 

Social Innovation Labs history

Labs  have  existed  in  the  academic  and  for-profit sectors  since  the  1800’s.  However,  in  the  early  2000’s innovation labs with human-centred design methodologies  aimed  at  studying  social  impact  started to appear in all sectors, including governments, universities and international organisations. Today, many universities (ex: Harvard i-Lab and Stanford d.school), international organizations (ex: UN, UNHCR and ICRC) and governments (ex: NESTA, UK and MindLab, Denmark) have innovation labs. 

Labs  can  be  referred  to  as  social  innovation  labs, civic  labs, system  innovation  labs,  incubators,  i-teams, hubs,  and  accelerators,  among  other  terminologies.  However the best definition I found was of a “semi-autonomous organisation that engages  diverse  participants -on  a  long-term  basis in open    collaboration for the purpose of creating, elaborating, and  prototyping radical solutions to open-ended systemic challenges” (Gryszkiewicz Lykourentzou  and  Toivonen  2016,  p.17). 

How long each lab lasts varies widely. A social innovation lab framework could in principle be applied in one day intervention, but usually these labs need time that can expand over years. 

Lab Practices

Labs methodologies  are  based  on  ethnographic-inspired  user research,  creative  ideation  processes,  and  visualisation and modelling of service prototypes (Bason, 2013).

According to my research, labs use well known collaborative methodologies such as: 

  • Leadership that is based on consensus and inclusion and shared by conveners (those who own a problem) and facilitators (trained professionals neutral to the topic, to guide the group into the process);

  • Diverse Stakeholders that can bring in social capital (knowledge of the problem, network or power to change legislation)  and shared resources (direct capital, in-kind work or tools ) but who are also open to discuss a divergent vision of the problem;

  • Process that is immersive (participants need a safe space where thrust reins) and open to emergent solutions (solutions can’t be pre-cooked and has to emerge from the group then and there). 

Additionally, “the right timing for action” is also an important external element that will affect the framework;  the  more the problem or  challenge is pressing the more the stakeholders will grant motivation, social capital and shared resources to the initiative.

Examples

As previously mentioned, the main characteristics of labs are of being systemic, experimental and social, and that labs create  inter-organizational collaboration to tackle society’s complex problems. Most of them focus their activities around themes addressed by the SDG’s such as food, water, poverty, and energy. 

In the sustainable fashion lab facilitated by Reos Partners,  it was a  change in legislation addressing irregular working conditions that motivated a very diverse group of stakeholders, representing all layers of the system (legislators, big company buyers, small middle person and sewers), to work together. They met a few times per year and each meeting took place in a neutral space, lasting three days at a time. Time was required to build trust among the participants and deepen their understanding of the problem and challenge to be tackled. Techniques to help the participants of the group to learn from one another such as democracy of time (independent of their place on the food chain, everyone had the same amount of time to express themselves) and learning  journeys (visits to small sewer’s ateliers where they were the experts) were also employed. Finally, the group was able to generate and test ideas using the transformative scenarios (imagine the worst and best scenarios and the path to get to them). At the conclusion of my research, the group, which had  been working  for more than one year together, continued to meet and discuss new ideas on how to improve their sector. The initiatives originally developed by the team have turned into projects, with schedules and budgets. 

NESTA, a UK organization focused on governamental work, has led a global study on 20 teams leading social innovation labs. They published the “Open Book of Social Innovation” that has several examples of labs, including metrics to measure success and alternative sources of funding. 

MarsLab in Canada has its focus on urban problems of their cities. La27region create programs to test new innovation methods for designing public policy involving all public stakeholders. Schools, such as the New School in NY through the Parson Desys Lab, are also entering this domain. Although these labs tackle a variety of topics, many focus on a specific one, such as the American eLab that is searching for the future of the electricity sector or the Cambodian inCompass that wants to bring the best practices in innovation to serve the poor. 

Conclusion

The effort involved in organizing and leading a social innovation lab requires  time to  understand  the  problem at  hand, techniques  that  allow  the  participants  to  drop  their ‘organizational’ voices and to learn one from another, and tools for the experimentation of new ideas. 

Geoff Mulgan, from  NESTA,  states  that “simple  solutionism  (rapid prototyping,  quick  and  dirty  approaches)  takes  hold, while complex system dynamics can be underestimated – this can hurt  [social] innovation where in most cases long-term engagement is important to have a real impact”. It is important to respect the systemic nature of the labs and draft realistic expectations of what deliverables they can produce within a given timeframe. 


Furthermore, the creation of a space that allows a group of people representing a system to extend the understanding of the problem and of the system itself should be considered as an important part of the outcome.

Further literature to the topic


Claudia Marcelloni has worked in science communication and innovation for more than a decade, mostly at the world’s largest laboratory, CERN leading projects such as TEDxCERN and Sparks. While working towards bridging the gap between scientific and technological development to public knowledge, Claudia grew interested in learning how these advances could be put to use for the social good. She was part of the first cohort in Social Innovation at Cambridge Judge Business School, conducting research on collaborative methodologies for social innovation labs.

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