Åpent seminar ved Senter for omsorgsforskning

Innovation Labs and Districts: Place-Based Experimentation for Challenge-Driven Innovation

v/  Professor Lars Coenen

The turn toward mission-oriented innovation marks a profound shift in how societies seek to address environmental and social challenges. Across cities and regions, experimentation, through innovation labs, districts, and testbeds, has become a central policy tool, promising transformative change through place-based action. Yet as experimentation proliferates, so too do unresolved questions about its limits and unintended consequences. Drawing on empirical research from Australia, Sweden, and Norway, I examine how innovation labs and districts are organized and governed as platforms for challenge-driven innovation—and where they fall short of their democratic and transformative aspirations.