{"id":1,"date":"2021-12-01T14:04:56","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T14:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/spark\/?p=1"},"modified":"2022-04-26T12:37:03","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T12:37:03","slug":"hello-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/spark\/hello-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Arriving in SPARK: Y Lab\u2019s next chapter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Y Lab (Welsh for \u2018the lab\u2019) is Cardiff University\u2019s public services innovation lab for Wales. Their purpose is to support Welsh public services to address societal challenges, which\u00a0they achieve by combining social science research methods with innovation methods & mindsets. Currently Y Lab\u2019s work falls into two main areas – their innovation programmes with public servants in Wales, and their research on the ‘how\u2019s and whys’ of public services innovation (see below for the details). Here Professor James Lewis, Academic Director of Y Lab explains more.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For its first six years, Y Lab was a partnership between Cardiff University and Nesta, the innovation foundation. Nesta have now withdrawn from Y Lab to focus on establishing Nesta Cymru, delivering exciting change in Wales directly aligned to Nesta\u2019s new missions. Y Lab will continue as the public services innovation lab for Wales, now solely led by Cardiff University.<\/p>\n

We are at the point where we can make a real shift from establishing Y Lab in the Welsh innovation system, to driving systemic change across Wales underpinned by research excellence. Central to this will be our imminent move into SPARK, which offers the opportunity to strengthen our partnerships with other Cardiff University research centres and other familiar faces. However, it will also provide unprecedented access to organisations across all sectors, with potential to establish new networks with innovation practitioners, public servants, and service users. The big societal challenges can not be solved in isolation, and we embrace the opportunity to explore new and creative ways to tackle the sticky issues!<\/p>\n

We are really keen to strengthen our partnerships with organisations going into SPARK, so if you are interested in what we do, or want to work with us on driving systemic change in Wales, get in touch at ylab@cardiff.ac.uk<\/a>, and we can grab a coffee on Zoom, or soon in SPARK\u2019s exciting new cafe \u2018milk & sugar\u2019.<\/p>\n

Y Lab\u2019s innovation programmes\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n