Based on our observations, the average Ideas Lab participant arrives curious, has exhausting fun learning new things and meeting new people, and leaves the event completely inspired to pursue ideas they couldn’t have come up with on their own.
Ideas Labs bring together 25-30 academics and researchers who:
- Come together for a multi-day workshop, which can be face-to-face or online
- Form interdisciplinary teams around innovative ideas
- Further develop these ideas through real-time peer review
- Put together and present pre-proposals
- May be on a team invited to submit a full proposal
- Have a good chance of getting funding to pursue their team’s innovative solution
Ideas Labs are opportunities to build collaborations in a matter of days that would otherwise take years. The result is funded, innovative research focused on complex problems. Sometimes, when direct funding isn’t an element, Ideas Labs are called Innovation Labs.
What’s Included:
- Project administration
- Project management board and knowledge base
- Project planning meetings
- Onboarding Organizers, Director, Mentors & Provocateurs
- Agenda design
- Venue assistance
- Onsite setup and orientation
- Workshop facilitation
- Workshop materials
- Travel & incidentals to and from the event
Optional Add-Ons:
- Facilitation of Participant selection process
- Online Collaboration Hub
- Additional Planning Meetings
- Additional Co-facilitator or Other KI Staff
- Organizational psychologist application review
- Additional application review
- 60-90 minute Micro Labs (before or after the event)
- Public event website
What People Are Saying About KI Ideas Labs
“I thought that the way we felt shepherded/taken care of by the KI team was really critical to the success of the workshop. I went in to the workshop kind of expecting to be run into the ground by the week. Instead, my experience was much the opposite. While the schedule was intense, we were given just the right amount of time to breathe/think/process, and I think it allowed us to push through the last few days of putting together a pitch while still having some creative juices and stamina left at the end. I really appreciate that the team understands the value of making time for this kind of thing for doing successful creative work.”
– Attendee NSF’s Building a Synthetic Cell (SynCell) Ideas Lab