The Nature of
Innovation Labs
A Short Brieng
March 2016
Rebecca Malby, Professor
Tel: 07973777309
Email: [email protected]
www.lsbu.ac.uk/hwi
Brief Overview
Health Labs are synonymous with innovation. Understanding the dierent types and theoretical
foundations can help in choosing both the name and the way you approach your innovation, but
also the community you are connecting too.
Labs
Laboratories are places where we experiment. We take hypothesis and we test them. This is critical
to the notion of labs in the health space. You have to experiment. There is no place for projects and
linear change here. The two key features of Labs are:
1. A hypothesis you are testing to see if it works.
2. Rigorous experiments to test the hypothesis out and develop interventions through prototypes.
This means developing clarity of ideas about cause and eect, protecting space to conduct
experiments, and not seeking short cuts.
In social and innovation Labs the main dierence to other change work is the focus on
participation, creative problem solving and prototyping.
Prototyping
Working hard together, teams get clear on what they want to achieve, and agree on the ideas they
want to try out. Using models and mock-ups, the new ideas are worked up by the team, to a point
where they can be tried in practice. Putting the model solutions into practice is done through a
rapid cycle of trying it out, seeing if it works, and improving the design until its doing the job you
wanted it to, or ditching it and trying a dierent approach. Prototyping helps you ‘de-risk’ your
ideas by trying them out. The quote most often used is ‘fail early, succeed sooner’ (attributed to
David Kelley, founder of IDEO)
Innovation
Innovation is a process that is ‘new to here’ (a novelty), and better than what previously existed
here (an improvement) (Phills et al 2008).
Innovation Labs
Innovation Labs create a neutral space for creativity and collaboration (Cartesen & Bason 2012).
They use diversity of participation (usually cross sector and including end user) to generate new
ideas, and (product) design thinking to design solutions. They tend to be ‘located’ i.e. they have a
physical presence.
The assumption is that the ‘old way’ of doing things and the environment in which that happens
won’t grow innovation, it needs its own space virtual, social and physical.
The archetype of these is the Dutch MindLAb, which has the following architecture
1. A physical workshop (inspiring environment) space for creative thinking and bringing diverse
views together, exposing people to new perspectives and ideas. The space is designed to be foster
creativity, sustainable development, eciency, innovation.
2. They rely on co-creation – i.e. diverse stakeholders including ‘end users’ coming together in co-
design
3. They develop skills in innovation
4. They provide tools for innovation
5. They learn fast, and iterate solutions
For this Lab the key is that there is a ‘home’ where there is disciplined and rigorous attention
to innovation. Note that MindLAb was designed for policy and service innovation but there are
multiple Labs across the Globe that have spaces that foster new relationships for long standing
problems.
For these Labs the key features are:
1. A space protected from any other use except innovation
2. A set of tools that can be used and skills that can be learnt
3. Diverse partnerships and participation (business, Government, social, citizen, academics,
technology)
These labs tend to be focused on
1. Service design
2. Governmental policy
3. Tech/ digital solutions
NESTA has mapped a large number of these types of labs (Price 2015). Note NESTA’s Health Lab
does seem to be more a network and series of projects / social movement than an Innovation or
Social Lab.
OECD is taking a lead particularly in the government role in future public services. (Observatory of
Public Sector Innovation)
Social Labs
Social Labs have many of the features of the Innovation Lab but focus on the social change issues
related to the big questions in our world. They operate through social networks of people trying
to solve these complex social challenges and according to Hassan (2014) they have the following
three characteristics
• Social
• Experimental
• Systemic
Social labs’ work is underpinned by complexity theory (in terms of the model of change they use)
and versions of the Theory U model (Sharmer 2008) for the process of change within the Lab. As
with Innovation Labs they securing diverse perspectives, connecting communities of interest,
but in these Social Labs the membership is determined by the nature of the questions they are
working on paying specic attention to ensuring membership from across the whole system
including frontline, strategists, managers, citizens, partners and stakeholders.
Social labs process starts with understanding the context for the issue they are working on; going
on to
• learning to see the issue dierently (by using the diverse perspectives invited into the Lab);
• expanding their sense of the possible through visits and exposure to the skills and resources in
their community;
• generating and then prototyping emergent solutions.
Social Labs tend to be in it for the long haul – they are looking to achieve social change that sticks.
They do not rely on a physical home, but instead use relationships to foster creativity, and nd
spaces that suit their issue.
Some use language such as “Change Labs’ for these future focused networks of people generating
systems change.
The main principle here is that these Lab members are working together to generate a solution to
a social and systemic problem. They are a network that learns and does (rapidly) together.
The U process
The U-process was co-developed by Jaworski and Scharmer, based on interviews with over 150
innovators, scientists, artists, and entrepreneurs. In applying it, an individual or team undertakes
three activities or movements:
1. Sensing the current reality of the system of which one is a part, carefully and in depth, by
suspending judgment, fear and cynicism, and redirecting one’s view point to that of the whole
system rather than the part;
2. Presencing by letting go of past expectations and agendas, and reecting to access one’s “inner
knowing” about what is going on and what one has to do; and
3. Realising, acting swiftly to bring forth a new reality, through prototyping, piloting and
institutionalising new behaviours, activities, or initiatives.
The U-Process is an archetypal change process that can be applied at an individual or collective
level.
The U Lab
This is a virtual community, pivoting around a MOOC, to generate a global movement using Theory
U (Scharmer 2008) process to co-create an ‘emerging future’. Participants where possible collect
together in Hubs (places) to learn and lead social change together. The MOOC, takes participants
through the steps of Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges; developing the skills that
underpin many of the innovation lab models above, but creating a real focus on the nature of the
relationships and understanding needed for new solutions to emerge
References
Carstensen H V & Bason C 2012. Powering Collaborative Policy Innovation: Can Innovation Labs
Help? The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, Volume 17(1), 2012, article 4.
http://www.innovation.cc/scholarly-style/christian_bason_v17i1a4.pdf
Phills Jr. JA, Deiglmeier K, & Miller DT (2008) Rediscovering Social Innovation. Stanford Social
Innovation Review. Fall. http://ssir.org/articles/entry/rediscovering_social_innovation#sthash.
EhdXwwGV.dpuf
Hassan Z 2014. The Social Lab Revolution: A new approach to solving the most complex challenges.
Stanford Social Innovation Review. May 15. http://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_social_labs_
revolution_a_new_approach_to_solving_our_most_complex_chall
Jaworski, J., and C.O. Scharmer (2000), Leadership in the New Economy: Sensing and Actualizing
Emerging Futures, Working Paper, Society for Organizational Learning, Cambridge Mass., and
Generon, Beverly, MA.
Observatory of Public Sector Innovation. https://www.oecd.org/governance/observatory-public-
sector-innovation/home/
Price A 2015. World of Labs. Blog NESTA http://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/world-labs
Scharmer O. 2008. Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges. Francisco, CA; Berrett-Koehler
The U lab https://www.presencing.com/ulab/overview
Contact
Rebecca Malby, Professor
School of Health and Social Care /
Research, Enterprise & Innovation
London South Bank University
6 St George’s Circus,
London SE1 6FE
Tel: 07973777309
Email: [email protected]
www.lsbu.ac.uk/hwi
