Social Labs
Holding environments for co-creation.
The Adaptive Leadership School accelerates system adaptation through a network of co-creation or social labs. Drawing from complexity science, we cultivate trans-disciplinary and trans-sectoral dialogues, design, and incubate new solutions. Through co-creation labs, we mobilize the intellectual capacity in universities toward addressing Sustainable Development Goals.
Social labs create a "holding environment," as described by Ronald Heifetz, providing a structured yet flexible space where stakeholders can engage in adaptive work. This environment balances pressure and support, allowing participants to confront complex problems, navigate conflicts, and experiment with solutions without feeling overwhelmed. It fosters a sense of safety, encouraging people to move beyond their comfort zones while still feeling supported.
In cross-boundary work, as discussed by Clark et al., social labs are essential for collaboration across diverse groups. They facilitate meaningful participation, ensure accountability, and help produce boundary objects—tools that bridge communication gaps between different stakeholders. By offering stability and fostering open dialogue, social labs create the necessary conditions for boundary work to succeed. This allows scientists, policymakers, and communities to co-create sustainable solutions through shared understanding and experimentation.
Source: Clark, William C., et al. "Boundary work for sustainable development: Natural resource management at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113.17 (2016): 4615-4622.
In partnership with the Asian School of Governance, the Adaptive Leadership School sets up social labs with universities, NGOs, and government in order to increase local innovation and leadership capacity.
According to Hassan (2014), social labs are
"platforms for addressing complex social challenges that have three core characteristics.
a. They are social. Social labs start by bringing together diverse participants to work in a team that acts collectively. They are ideally drawn from different sectors of society, such as government, civil society, and the business community. The participation of diverse stakeholders beyond consultation, as opposed to teams of experts or technocrats, represents the social nature of social labs.
b. They are experimental. Social labs are not one-off experiences. They’re ongoing and sustained efforts. The team doing the work takes an iterative approach to the challenges it wants to address, prototyping interventions and managing a portfolio of promising solutions. This reflects the experimental nature of social labs, as opposed to the project-based nature of many social interventions.
c. They are systemic. The ideas and initiatives developing in social labs, released as prototypes, aspire to be systemic in nature. This means trying to come up with solutions that go beyond dealing with a part of the whole or symptoms and address the root cause of why things are not working in the first place."
Innovation Ecosystem Strengthening Guide-FINAL (1).pdf