The lab's logic of change

The Urban Innovation and Leadership Lab offers a unique combination of innovation facilitation and social lab architecture that enables action and experiential learning, empowering each participant to find pattern-breaking solutions and to develop as a leader.

Participants communicate and interact on a peer-to-peer basis allowing for true collaboration. Together they select relevant challenges, find prototype solutions in a unique design-thinking process and enhance their leadership capacities through coaching.

Innovative solutions

The Urban Innovation and Leadership Lab delivers outcomes on the personal, organisational and higher levels for a desirable future of urban living. As a participant you will integrate your personal experience and professional challenges in a creative process that allows you to work towards a shared long-term vision and apply your learning in your home context.

Methods related to Foresight and Design Thinking are applied in order to generate ideas and innovations. These methods boost participants’ cross-sectoral insights, cross-cultural competencies and creative confidence by encouraging rapid, team-based development of ideas and prototypes. Using iterations and reality checks, the ideas are forged into applicable prototypes that participants will be able to implement in real-life settings.

New perspectives for leadership

Urban leaders of the future need to build a broad skill-set relating to leading through complexity and uncertainty while applying principles such as integrity, openness, authenticity and self-reflection.

Consequently, the Lab offers a safe working space and room for deep dialogue to enable a holistic perspective on participants’ topics and challenges, and encourage sharing and support. Exploration of meaning and purpose is part of the leadership journey that is complemented by individual coaching and reflection.

Throughout the process, empathic collaboration is fostered with the aim of generating effective ideas and facilitating their implementation. Sustainable urban solutions have a global perspective and therefore the Lab takes you to three different global hot spots to broaden and diversify your understanding.

Benefits

Participating in the Urban Innovation and Leadership Lab, you will

• develop forward-thinking leadership skills and competencies;
• be introduced to new ways of thinking that go beyond repeating outdated patterns of solution-finding;
• be able to transfer fresh impetus and insights into your home context;
• gain a deep understanding of the diverse perspectives and systemic challenges in your field;
• learn from dialogue with experienced and innovation-driven leaders with different mind-sets and professional backgrounds;
• embark on a team-based solution-finding process to respond to current and future urban challenges

Dealing with the challenges of urban life

It will take greater innovation capacity and modern leadership skills that can break with conventional patterns if we are to find effective solutions to the complexities of city living.

This calls for leaders who are capable of initiating fundamental change in their areas of responsibility. Most importantly, systems and organisations can only transform if the individuals who shape them grow as well. This is why we offer a unique Lab methodology, designed to support leaders and change agents and equip them to deal with the challenges of urban life.

Urban areas perform central functions at present and for the future of humankind. Private-sector solutions and planning approaches have to co-evolve and adapt to the current and future challenges of urban development in order to transform our cities into resilient and sustainable systems.