Labs and Beyond: Opportunities to Transform Innovation Support

Reimagining Systems of Support for Aid Sector Innovators To date, much of the work on innovation lab design has focused on serving individual innovators who develop well-bounded products and services. Other more complex forms of innovation, ideas that engage a diverse range of participants in a wider creative effort, have received less attention and have fewer formal systems of support. This paper explores these untapped innovation strategies and lays out the ecosystems of support they need to succeed. In this "post-lab" world, sponsors of innovation have a unique opportunity to expand their strategies for funding and mentoring impactful creative change.

Authored by Dan McClure

Dan has multiple decades of experience working with innovation initiatives that are rooted in systems change. He has collaborated with a wide range of aid sector innovation programs to advance innovation practices, scale sustainable innovations, and build creatively adaptive organisations. He was a senior advisor to the DEPP Labs programme and is currently the chair of the Humanitarian Innovation Fund’s advisory board.