CaNeoLabs

The great comeback

Here We Go Again !

After a year of preparation, the Laboratoire en innovation ouverte (LLio), in collaboration with Social Innovation Canada (SI), is pleased to invite you to participate in CaNeoLabs “The great comeback”.

This project is made possible thanks to the financial support of the Secrétariat du Québec aux relations canadiennes (SQRC), as part of the Programme d’appui aux relations canadiennes (PARC).

Learning circles

We invite you to take part in a series of four online workshops, in the form of learning circles, starting in January 2025 and concluding with an in-person event in Halifax in early June 2025.

Our objectives

Develop a typology based on the impact of Canadian innovation labs;
Help lab practitioners better understand their key characteristics and identify their similarities and differences with other labs in the ecosystem;
Support lab practitioners in implementing indicators to measure their impact;
Identify and discuss the laboratories’ impact on the public sector, society, their territory and the Canadian innovation ecosystem;
Continue to build trust and links between innovation labs across Canada.

Key details

We will use the Learning Circles method to achieve our goal.
These circles will be held online to ensure participation from labs across Canada.
To maximize participant learning, only 16 labs will be selected to participate.
Four types of entity are invited:
- public-sector laboratories,
- social innovation labs,
- university innovation labs and
- intermediary organizations.

All provinces will be represented.

Circle dates

The online circles will take place on the last Tuesday of each month, from 2:00 to 4:00pm, Eastern Standard Time (EST).

The big meeting

The in-person event will take place in Halifax, the day before the Canadian Social Innovation Forum (1st week of June 2025). This event will serve to present a retrospective of the four learning circles to the wider Lab ecosystem, and to reflect on how to expand the learning circle into a structured community of practice organized through provincial chapters.

How to get involved?

Register for Circles

I want to participate in the Learning Circles

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Circles summary

Circle No1 - January 28

Circle No1 theme: Defining ourselves to stand out as Canada’s innovation laboratory

Learnings and contributions

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For those who missed the discussion 👀 :

📊 Perception of impact Widely varying perceptions: only one lab identifies a strong environmental impact, while the majority perceive their impact on a social, local or sectoral level. 🔍 How can we better connect perceived and real impact to refine our actions?

📈 Maturity and evolving indicators Maturity levels influence how labs define and achieve their impacts. 💡 Would evolving, non-fixed indicators be more relevant to open innovation?

🤝 Convergences

Innovation labs serve as powerful places of practice where participants can meet differently, build trust and dare to experiment.
They create strong relationships and encourage lasting autonomy: ideally, by the end of the lab, there’s no longer any need for the lab because new habits, behaviors and relationships have been established.
The level of maturity of the labs directly influences the assessment of their impact.

🔄 Divergences

The pace of processes varies according to the type of lab: what works for municipal labs may not apply to other contexts.
Lab participants often need to learn a common vocabulary, as languages differ across disciplines and sectors.
The impact of labs may lie in their ability to bring together different departments to think together and take a step back.

⚖️ Gaps to be bridged

Rules of engagement: how can we better define interaction frameworks in an institutional context?
Assessing relational impact: perhaps not so easy to measure, but crucial to understanding the success of labs.
Diversity of perspectives: creating spaces that value a variety of viewpoints.
Evolving indicators: how can we structure tools to assess impact without freezing the dynamics of labs?

❓ Unresolved questions

How can we better assess the relational impact of labs?
How can we integrate more diverse perspectives?

🗺️ Mapping Canadian labs

Take part in enriching our collaborative map! Fill in this form to add the labs you know about and help us co-construct a map of Canadian innovation labs to better understand and connect our ecosystems.

Fill in this form

Ressources

Mural Circle No1

Revisiting the January 28, 2024 presentation

This project is made possible thanks to the financial support of the Secrétariat du Québec aux relations canadiennes (SQRC), as part of the Programme d’appui aux relations canadiennes (PARC).

Circle No2 - February 25

Ready for the 3rd Circle? 🔄 A brief look back at the 2nd right here! 👇

On February 25, 15 practitioners from 12 labs in Alberta, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia got together once again to experiment with a reflection grid on the different temporalities of impact. A second meeting rich in exchanges to go further in demystifying the different perceptions of impact within the initiatives themselves in relation to the societal challenges the labs are trying to solve.

Circle theme No. 2: Societal challenges

Discussion and learning

Je suis une image

For those who have missed the discussion since January 👀 :

Why are we here?

CaNeoLabs brings together different types of Canadian innovation labs to explore new approaches to articulating their values, with the aim of making them sustainable and amplifying their impact.

Our common challenge

How can we measure success beyond traditional KPIs?
How can we better communicate our value to donors, partners and communities?

🔎 What we build together

Through 4 workshops, this initiative aims to equip lab practitioners to better demonstrate their impact. Among other things, we’ll be drawing on the Need, Advantage, Proof (NAB) framework to structure convincing arguments.

Key findings

After exploring the perception of organizational impact, our target :

Identify the main challenges facing one of your initiatives
Define the expected impact at different stages: during, after and beyond the lab

💡 What we learned:

Societal impact on different scales: The challenges addressed evolve over time, requiring reflection on short-, medium- and long-term impact.
Funding influences the approach: It’s easier to experiment when funding is mission-based rather than project-based.
Government labs converge: Inclusion, equity and lived experience are cross-cutting priorities, whatever the field (housing, leisure, food).
Change perspective through collaboration: Bringing stakeholders to the same table transforms views and approaches.
The “ah-ha moments” remain difficult to measure: Capturing these triggers and translating them into tangible evidence remains a challenge, particularly when it comes to convincing financial backers.

❓ Unresolved questions

Relationship impact can be categorized into three dimensions:
- networking impact
- Cognitive impact
- Behavioral impact
How to structure an effective assessment?
- Identify relationship dynamics beforehand (Time 1)
- Clarify intentions and expectations
- Observe changes during the process
- Measure changes afterwards (Time 2)
What tools and methodologies can help us capture these subtle but essential transformations?

Ressources

Mural Circle No 1 January and No 2 February

Revisiting the January 28, 2024 presentation

Circle No3 is already Tuesday!

Alternate text

Cercle No3 – Mapping the impact of labs 📅 Tuesday, March 25 | 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm EST Where does the impact of labs lie? For this third circle, we dive into experimenting with a tool for mapping labs’ impact levels. 🔎 On the agenda: more time to exchange in sub-groups, share your experiences and see ideas emerge. Always with the aim of exploring with you how to transform these impacts into concrete public values!

The 5th Learning Circle will be in Halifax, June 1-4!

Off to Halifax!

This year’s annual Forum will focus on the theme of connectivity. With this in mind, we’re joining forces with Social Innovation Canada and the Forum for Programming 2025. The objective? To bring together social innovation researchers and practitioners from social innovation labs to pool our efforts and strengthen the impact of our missions.

Invitation request

The Forum team will then send you a form to complete, confirming your interest and providing you with registration details. If you have any questions, please contact Emma directly (emma@sicanada.org).

Travel support

We are actively supporting The Collaborative in its fundraising efforts to finance travel bursaries to the Forum in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We’ll let you know as soon as these bursaries are confirmed, by the end of April, at the last Learning Circle.

Already halfway through the learning circles!

Do you have any comments or suggestions?

Contact us: caneolabs@llio.quebec

This project is made possible thanks to the financial support of the Secrétariat du Québec aux relations canadiennes (SQRC), as part of the Programme d’appui aux relations canadiennes (PARC).

Circle No3 - March 25

Already the last! 🎯 We return to the 3rd Circle before the conclusion of this series.

Having explored together where the impact of labs lies in Circle No3, it’s time to look at how to measure it. This final learning circle will bring the series to a close, equipping us collectively to better leverage our approaches, both among practitioners and with funders. But first, let’s take a look back at the rich exchanges of Circle No3, where we mapped the impact levels of the labs through your shared experiences and reflections…

Circle Theme No3: Mapping the ripple effects of the labs’ impact

Discussion and learning

Je suis une image

For those joining us 👀 :

Why are we here?

CaNeoLabs brings together different types of Canadian innovation labs to explore new approaches to articulating their values, with the aim of making them sustainable and amplifying their impact as practitioners and as an ecosystem.

Our common challenge

How can we better communicate our value to donors, partners and communities?

🔎 What we build together

Through 4 workshops, this initiative aims to equip innovation lab practitioners to better understand and distinguish the public value of such a method. Among other things, we draw on the Need, Advantage, Proof (NAB) framework to structure convincing arguments.

Key findings

Having explored the perception of organizational impact, and then the impact of an innovation lab initiative, the target of the 3rd circle was:

Mapping direct and indirect impacts in a cause-and-effect principle, starting from the fundamental foundations of the labs found together at the end of Circle 2.
Focus on one element at a time: Experimentation, Transformational Learning, Relationship Building and Inclusivity (voted to be worked on in Circle 4).

💡 What came out of the discussions:

🔁 Adaptation
- Each key element of a lab must be adapted to the needs and reality of the context.
- It is essential to clarify the intention of an approach, as well as its concrete usefulness in generating change or transformation.
- Capacity building is at the heart of trust-building within collaborative processes.
- Transformation needs to be integrated right from the design stage: it’s impossible to add it along the way and hope for real change.
🚀 Adoption
- Lab contexts vary enormously: it’s crucial to think carefully about the experience you want to create, depending on the players involved.
- Not all collaborators arrive with the same level of understanding or ability: you need to plan for a gradual, inclusive entry into the process.
- The appropriation process is ongoing, and requires time and support.
🧭 What emerged from the discussions
- There are many possible dimensions and forms for labs: each choice implies gains and compromises.
- The importance of developing a posture or state of mind conducive to experimentation and collective learning.
- Be clear about the long-term impact targeted (the “north star”) and how the lab wishes to contribute to it in a specific way.
- Every contextual factor (stakeholders, culture, temporality…) influences the expression and effectiveness of the approaches chosen.
- Everything is interconnected: impacts are played out at several levels, and require a systemic vision.

❓ Unresolved questions

Which indicators are really useful for practitioners? And which ones are relevant to funders?
How can we reconcile short-term issues (deliverables, visible results) with long-term effects (cultural change, systemic transformation)?
How can we take into account the unequal capacities of stakeholders in the co-construction of an evaluation process?
How far can we standardize without losing the richness of contextual approaches?
How can we translate an intention to transform into concrete, measurable and mobilizing elements?
What role can qualitative, narrative or experiential data play in impact assessment?

Ressources

Resources shared by the community

Mural Circles No 1, 2 and 3

Tuesday April 22, the end of the series on the impact of labs!

Cercle No4 – Measuring the impact of innovation labs to foster learning and demonstrate their value 📅 Tuesday, April 22 | 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm EST For whom are we measuring the impact of labs? For this fourth circle, we conclude with breakout conversations around impact indicators useful to measure between lab practitioners and useful to communicate with funders. 🔎 On the agenda: as much time as possible to exchange ideas in sub-groups. Always with the aim of exploring together how best to use our data in the design of our labs approaches and translate them into concrete public values!

REMINDER! Join us in Halifax (June 1-4) Apply for your equity bursary!

Off to Halifax!

This year’s annual Forum will focus on the theme of connectivity. With this in mind, we’re joining forces with Social Innovation Canada and the Forum for Programming 2025. The objective? To bring together social innovation researchers and practitioners from social innovation labs to pool our efforts and strengthen the impact of our missions.

Invitation request

The Forum team will then send you a form to complete, confirming your interest and providing you with registration details. If you have any questions, please contact Emma directly (emma@sicanada.org).

Travel support

We are actively supporting The Collaborative in its fundraising efforts to finance travel bursaries to the Forum in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We’ll let you know as soon as these bursaries are confirmed, by the end of April, at the last Learning Circle.

Last virtual circle before meeting in person!

Do you have any comments or suggestions?

Contact us : caneolabs@llio.quebec

This project is made possible thanks to the financial support of the Secrétariat du Québec aux relations canadiennes (SQRC), as part of the Programme d’appui aux relations canadiennes (PARC).

Circle No4 - April 22

We’ll lock up the virtual world, take your comments and set sail for Halifax!

The 4th Virtual Circle plunged us into a major challenge: how to measure the impact of our labs to foster collective learning and demonstrate their value. In small groups, we delved into a simple question… but not so simple: 👉 For whom do we measure? Among peers, to improve our practices? Or to improve our dialogue with funders? A moment rich in sharing, where indicators became a pretext for questioning what we really seek to value as practitioners of innovation. To refresh your memory (or for those of you who missed it), we invite you to take a look back at the 4th Cercle… And above all: your feedback will help us fine-tune our plans for the future. 📩 It only takes a few minutes to reply, and you’ll be helping to grow our learning community.

Cercle No4 theme: For whom do we measure the impact of labs?

Discussion and learning

Capture d'écran d'un apperçu de l'atelier

For those joining us 👀 :

Why are we here?

CaNeoLabs brings together different types of Canadian innovation labs to explore new approaches to articulating their values, with the aim of making them sustainable and amplifying their impact as practitioners and as an ecosystem.

Our common challenge

How can we better communicate our value to each other, to donors, partners and beneficiaries?

🔎 What we build together

Through 4 virtual workshops, the learning circles aimed to equip innovation lab practitioners to better understand and distinguish public value from impact measurement and communication. A 5th BONUS circle will be held in person at Canada’s Social Innovation Forum, on June 2 in Halifax.

Key findings

Now that we’ve looked at the fundamental elements that make up social innovation laboratories, here’s the target of the 4th circle.

💡 What came out of the discussions:

There are many possible dimensions and forms for labs: each choice involves gains and compromises.
The importance of developing a posture or state of mind conducive to experimentation and collective learning.
Be clear about the long-term impact targeted (the “north star”) and how the lab wishes to contribute to it in a specific way.
Every contextual factor (stakeholders, culture, temporality…) influences the expression and effectiveness of the approaches chosen.
Everything is interconnected: impacts are played out at several levels, and require a systemic vision.

❓ Unresolved questions

How can we reconcile short-term issues (deliverables, visible results) with long-term effects (cultural change, systemic transformation)?
How can we take into account the unequal capacities of stakeholders in the co-construction of an evaluation approach?
How far can we standardize without losing the richness of contextual approaches?
How can we translate an intention to transform into concrete, measurable and mobilizing elements?
What role can qualitative, narrative or experiential data play in impact assessment?

Ressources

Resources shared by the community

Mural Circles No 1, 2 and 3

Monday, June 2: Meet in person for the 5th BONUS circle in Halifax!

Circle No5 – 📅 Monday, June 2 | 2:00 pm – 4:30 pm ADT We’ll explore how social innovation labs can strike a balance between ambition and the ability to effectively address systemic challenges? 🔎 On the program: Immersion in the theme of the duality between ambition and capacity in social innovation labs using a relational object.

Help us count the impact of Learning Circles

Tell us all about it!

How far have you got since our last group discussions on the impact of the labs?

Answer the feedback survey

Contact us: caneolabs@llio.quebec

This project is made possible thanks to the financial support of the Secrétariat du Québec aux relations canadiennes (SQRC), as part of the Programme d’appui aux relations canadiennes (PARC).

More informations about the previous edition here.

The CaNeoLabs team, powered by the Laboratory for Open and Collaborative Innovation (LLIO)

caneolabs@llio.quebec

In collaboration with