Mapping public sector innovation labs
Reshaping policy-making through design thinking?
Governments worldwide have established public innovation labs to address complex policy challenges through novel approaches. They are sometimes called ‘policy labs’, PILs or PSILs, among other names. But what exactly are these labs, how do they operate, and what makes them distinct from other policy actors?
A rapidly growing field
In our book chapter ‘Magic PILs to cure the ills of public management?’, Professor Jenny Lewis and I explore how policy labs proliferated globally in response to perceived shortcomings in conventional approaches by governments. In the last decade, researchers identified at least 52 PILs in Australia and New Zealand, 13 in Latin America, 212 in Europe, and 36 in Canada, suggesting hundreds if not thousands exist worldwide.
This chapter built on research conducted with Michael McGann and Tamas Wells at The University of Melbourne, including an international analysis of the rise of policy labs, an examination of design-for-policy and the policymaking process, and both survey and case study research on PILs in Australia and New Zealand.
What makes PILs unique?
PILs are commonly understood as ‘change agents’ or ‘safe spaces’ for experimentation and innovation in the public sector. They tend to work across government agencies and departments, traverse multiple policy sectors, and operate with high levels of autonomy. They often have a particular emphasis on applying design thinking or ‘designerly’ approaches to public problems.
Our research revealed that the most frequently employed methodology used by PILs in Australia and New Zealand is human-centred design. This was associated with interviews, ethnographic methods, user testing and prototyping, as well as citizen and stakeholder engagement through workshops, walkthroughs and other collaborative approaches.
We argue that PILs function as a specific kind of design-for-policy entrepreneur. They display social acuity, define problems, build teams, and lead by example – characteristics identified in classic policy entrepreneurship literature. However, unlike traditional policy actors who focus on problems or solutions, PILs focus on how problems are framed and options are developed.
Diverse relationships with government and policy
Our analysis of 20 prominent PILs in 2016-18 revealed considerable variation in their structures. We identified four types:
Government-controlled labs: wholly funded and overseen by government (e.g., Policy Lab [UK], CityLab in Melbourne, Social Innovation Lab Kent)
Government-led labs: subject to government oversight but only partially funded (e.g., MindLab, La 27e Région)
Government-enabled labs: partially government-funded but with little direct oversight (e.g. The Australian Centre for Social Innovation, Nesta – at least historically)
Independently run labs: no direct government funding or oversight (e.g., GovLab, MaRS Solutions Lab)
Our 2018 survey found that PILs predominantly focused on the ‘front end’ of defining problems, with 94 per cent of independent labs and 60 per cent of government-based labs reporting they were ‘very frequently’ involved in ‘identifying or scoping problems’. Generating and testing solutions were the most common activities of PILs overall, while few labs engaged in implementation or scaling activities.
Developing policy proposals or reforms was, interestingly, not the main function of these units. The most commonly reported activities of these labs were consulting with stakeholders, understanding user experience, and generating ideas.
Challenges and questions
While PILs have successfully championed design thinking and participatory approaches in the public sector, significant questions remain. Their political and economic precarity makes them vulnerable to closure, as illustrated by Denmark’s celebrated MindLab.
The design practices used by PILs have proven helpful in building shared understanding of complex issues and reframing policy options, but there are significant challenges in getting the kind of deep public involvement that designers advocate, and their capacity to achieve systems-level transformation is largely unproven.
We concluded that, for PILs to have larger-scale impact, design-based practices would need to be embedded within organisations and integrated in practices and knowledge, including through fit-for-purpose procurement, recruitment and training. Stronger evaluation of labs' practice and impact could also help determine the legitimacy of claims made by these design-for-policy entrepreneurs.
As governments continue to grapple with complex, cross-cutting challenges, understanding how PILs function – and whether they can move beyond standalone projects to reshape the processes, structures and strategies of public sector systems – remains a crucial question for both practitioners and researchers.
This post summarises the book chapter Magic PILs to cure the ills of public management? The rise of public innovation labs as design-for-policy entrepreneurs by Emma Blomkamp and Jenny M. Lewis, drawing on research conducted with colleagues at the Melbourne Policy Lab.
See also:
Lewis, J. M., McGann, M., & Blomkamp, E. (2020). When design meets power: Design thinking, public sector innovation and the politics of policymaking. Policy & Politics, 48(1), 111–130.
McGann, M., Blomkamp, E., & Lewis, J. M. (2018). The rise of public sector innovation labs: Experiments in design thinking for policy. Policy Sciences, 51(3), 249–267.
McGann, M., J.M. Lewis and E. Blomkamp (2018) “Mapping Public Sector Innovation Units in Australia and New Zealand: 2018 Survey Report.” Melbourne: The Policy Lab, The University of Melbourne.
McGann, M., T. Wells and E. Blomkamp (2021) Innovation Labs and Co-Production in Public Problem Solving. Public Management Review 23 (2): 1–20.
