Social innovation labs are the latest vehicles for systemic change – for disrupting the way our cities, our schools, our welfare programs, even our economic systems run. But how do they really work? It is time to get beyond the hype and properly probe into the practices and underlying theories of social innovation laboratories. To make our assumptions explicit about how labs prompt systemic change. To critique its logic. To ultimately learn how labs could lead to better functioning systems. Which enable people to live ‘better’ lives, both now and in the future.
To make a first step in this learning curve, Kennisland and Hivos (with the support of the SIX network) hosted Lab2: a two-day lab on social innovation labs from the Americas, Europe, Africa, Oceania and Asia. This presentation shares the outcomes and ideas on how to move forward.
1. Lab Matters:
Opening up Social Laboratories
by Marlieke Kieboom
mk@kl.nl
Tuesday, November 12, 13
2. Once upon a time ...
Marlieke
Tuesday, November 12, 13
Remko
3. Kennisland
small (18)
NL/Europe
International
115 mln
independent
smarter people
better society
large (342)
1,6 mln
research
experiment
bring people together
political lobby
Hivos
subsidies
Own experiments
Partner organisations
societal challenges + do something
education
cultural heritage
creative economy
copyright
social innovation
public sector
Tuesday, November 12, 13
4. Social challenges + do something ?
C
o
m
p
l
e
x
i
t
y
wicked
problems
public systems
social challenges
social or cultural
problems that are difficult to
solve because of incomplete,
contradictory, changing
requirements and scattered
problemholders
typically
offloaded to policy
makers, or written off as
being too cumbersome
to bother with.
time
eg. climate change,
obesity, migration,
poverty, drug trafficking,
financial crsisis,
unemployment, aging
source: Joeri van den Steenhoven / Marlieke Kieboom
Tuesday, November 12, 13
5. Social challenges + do something !
Sarah
Tuesday, November 12, 13
Chris
Josine
What the #
are social labs?
8. Tech Lab vs Social Lab
source:
inwithforward.com
Tuesday, November 12, 13
9. popping up all over the world
source:
Satsuko van
Antwerp /
SIG
Tuesday, November 12, 13
10. Easy to open up data (what) about the
stuff you do...
.. but not easy to open up organisations
(how?) & people (who?) behind the data to
learn from each others practice and
discover interests (why?) (for whome?)
Tuesday, November 12, 13
11. Let’s open up the lab’s black box
Tuesday, November 12, 13
12. special ingredients to be open
Rigor of the
Content
historical analysis
Frances
Westley
Learning
environmet
where we share
theoretical debate
with whome we share
live case studies
how we share
Read more
on SSIreview
S. Schulman
Tuesday, November 12, 13
KL+Hivos
+Lab
Practitioners
No funders
present
13. Lab2: the Lab about Labs
20 labs
do tank, SI lab,
design lab, living
lab, fab lab, tech
lab, hub, hive,
centre for
innovation,
change lab
Issue focus:
technical,
environmental,
economic, social
40
people
Africa, East-Asia,
South America,
USA, Australia,
Europe,
multi-team:
creative
researchers,
analytic
thematic experts, strong stewardship
ethnographers,
show not tell
designers
attitude
20
wicked
problems
Tuesday, November 12, 13
well-being,
education,
environment,
service design
economy, public
systems change
health,
research
democratization,
network
poverty
methodology dev.
reduction, social
tech, public
sector innovation
0-15 yrs old
methodologies:
system thinking
design thinking
co-creation
visualization
prototyping
feedback loops
evualuation
Funds: Diverse! Gates
Foundation,
Rockefeller, Hivos,
Governments,
Worldbank, Unicef
work with ‘the
system’: policy
makers, service
providers, end-users,
politicians
?
14. Lab2: what do labs do
enable
families to
thrive
www.familybyfamily.org.au
better
education
www.onderwijspioniers.nl
happy school
supply chain:
drop outs
better toilets
www.iminet.org
better child new auditing
protection
www.tacsi.org.au
election
functional
waste system monitoring
http://oneearthweb.org
Tuesday, November 12, 13
www.ide-cambodia.org
www.ushahidi.com
http://thefinancelab.org
help social
start-ups
www.bongohive.co.zm
http://afrilabs.com
15. What did we learn?
Lab struggles
Lab
Team
anatomy Hire
Lab
environ
ment
Tuesday, November 12, 13
Scale
EndMethodol
Contracting Funding
User
ogy
Manufactur
Time
ability
Politics
Systems
Change
16. So.. what do we need more of?
Cut the crap
Humbleness
Share your crap
Courage
unhype!
You are not
neutral
Engage with each others crap Collective Learning
Less crappy solutions
Better processes
Decision
Making
Structures
Tuesday, November 12, 13
Policy Making
Structures
Evaluation
collective buyin
17. We need more deep learning!
ways to get involved ...
Lab Matters
A Lab of Labs
reflect on practice of labs with the aim to
arrive at new ideas to try out
A report from Lab2, and why learning to
reflect on our assumptions about how
change happens has value, whether or not
“lab” is in your title.
3
by Sarah Schulman
http://www.ssireview.org/blog/entry/
a_lab_of_labs
Lab Resources
http://lab2.kl.nl
Tuesday, November 12, 13
by Marlieke Kieboom
Upcoming @ www.kl.nl
Lab Ladders
2014?
Kenya?
Elevate our thinking on social innovation
and encourage researchers to study the
innovation field more critically from a
political perspective
by Marlieke Kieboom
Upcoming @ www.kl.nl
18. Let’s open up
Do labs help to solve complex problems?
What would your organisations look like if it was a lab?
What challenge areas do you see?
Tuesday, November 12, 13