
On the 17th and 18th of October 2016 the EU Policy Lab hosted the first meeting of European policy labs. The event was the first opportunity to generate a community of practitioners and policy-makers at several levels of governance.
Here you can find information on the event, the ongoing activities and some resources about policy labs.
THE EVENT
LAB CONNECTIONS started as an event held in Brussels at the Berlaymont on October 17th and 18th, 2016. The event was part of a Pilot Project initiated by the European Parliament in collaboration with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.
User-centred approaches increase the involvement of citizens in policy-making and provide an opportunity to respond better to policy challenges.
Lab Connections aims at creating an open space for collaboration between policy labs and policy-shapers at local, regional, national and EU-level by
- discussing the role of policy labs in public sector innovation
- experimenting and testing through concrete actions how policy labs can contribute to address concerns of pan-European relevance

SETTING THE SCENE: CAN LABS MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
DAY 1 MORNING
The first part of Lab Connections offers two open conversations to better understand the context of policy labs.
The first conversation will focus on experiences from Finland, Estonia (tbc), France and Portugal to spot tendencies, explain good experiences and highlight hurdles in the path towards innovation and modernisation in the public sector. What is fundamentally new in the framework conditions and what is new in terms of approaches?
The second public conversation will enter the practical dimensions of establishing lab-like structures, ensuring and demonstrating impact, while sharing positive and negative experiences, organisational models, etc.

HANDS-ON LAB SESSIONS
CONNECTING, EXPLORING, REFRAMING
DAY 1 AFTERNOON AND DAY 2
Policy Labs are “do-tanks”. We believe that the best way to demonstrate that labs can make a difference is by “do-sessions”, i.e., table workshop sessions addressing real issues in a working setting. That is why the focus of this part of Lab Connections is on practical work rather than presentations.
The starting point is a list of challenges of European concern, coming from policy units within the European Commission:
The challenges are open for exploration and need to be reframed according to the participants’ experience. There will be a table per challenge animated by a lab with the assistance of the EU Policy Lab. Each table will generate visual representations of the challenges, using markers, paper, stickers and 3D-props. The objective is to highlight ideas for action where there can be a significate contribution from the participants.
At the end of this session we will collect all the ideas for action. On day 2 the most promising of these ideas will be transformed into plans for collaborative action.
By the end of the second day we should have a good idea what the first steps could be to implement such collaborative actions and who would be willing to take part.

EXHIBITION AND EXCHANGE
In addition, exhibition and networking time will be available for labs to present themselves using graphic panels. A space for one-to-one conversations in the permanent coffee corner will also be available.

OVERVIEW OF THE LAB MOVEMENT
Marleen Stikker, President and co-founder, WAAG Society
Twitter: @marleenstikker
POLICY LABS FOR PUBLIC INNOVATION
EXPLORING NEW WAYS OF MANDATING CHANGE
Jesper Christiansen, Senior Programme Manager, Nesta
Twitter: @JesperC_
THE COMMUNITY
The LAB CONNECTIONS community is formed by several working groups dedicated to exploring and solving specific policy challenges. The groups are composed by labs and policy-makers active at European, state, regional and local level. The first set of policy challenges were proposed during the event and the work is now focusing on defining the “kickstarters”. If you see a topic of interest you are welcome to follow the conversations or to join.
RESOURCES
Results of the first mapping exercise
The map displayed on the left is based on the first mapping exercise performed by Conseil & Recherche and the 27th Region. It will be periodically updated based on user feedbacks and new submissions. If you would like to be included in the map, please complete a quick survey.
To access the original report, please click on the link below.
- COMESE policy lab, Italy
- E-gov lab, Sweden
- Engage Warsaw, Poland
- European Forum Alpbach, Austria
- Experimenting Finland, Finland
- FCC lab, Italy
- Govlab, Austria
- GOVUP, Spain
- Guts to change, Norway
- iMinds living labs, Belgium
- Inno_lab, Poland
- Innovation lab, UK
- La 27e Région, France
- la 27e Région / back
- Lab 60+, Poland
- Labx, Portugal
- Le lab pôle employ, France
- Loire atlantique lab, France
- Mission innovation, France
- Nesta, UK
- Policy Lab, UK
- Policy Lab, UK – back
- Policy Simulation Lab, Greece
- Public innovation lab, Sweden
- Service design network, Germany
- Smart factory, France – back
- Smart factory, France
- System changers, UK
- Transition lab, Belgium
- USCREATES, UK
- WAAG society, Netherlands
- Wasted, Netherlands
HOW TO JOIN
Your lab is not on the map? Are you interested in joining the community? Please complete a quick survey. If you are not a lab and you would still like to keep in touch, please contact us using the regular contact form.