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 innovateUK
LSE Lab: Alternative Futures

April 2003
Designing a ‘Lab’ for the London School of Economics

2
 LSE Lab: Alternative Futures
Designing a ‘Lab’ for the London School of Economics

Innovation Series

www.uk.cgey.com/cgeyinnovates

This White Paper investigates possible futures for a London School of Economics ‘Lab’. This paper
communications a summary of the main viewpoints which emerged during a one-day seminar held
at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young’s innovation centre : innovateUK. Participants at the event included
representatives from the London School of Economics, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, IDEO and DEGW.

Each ‘voice’ in this white paper describes a future scenario for the LSE ‘Lab’ and represents a
collection of opinions expressed by participants at the seminar.

1

A place like a lab has to be organic and grow over
time and adapt to future needs that haven’t been
established yet. It needs to enable behaviours and
not be stale or intimidating. They need support in
jumping away from standard academic behaviours
and being a lot more playful.
Voice 1
My role here at the Lab is to
support the people coming in to
help them make best use of it.
You get people who wander in,
mostly internal LSE people, but
sometimes they’re from outside
and they’ve had a meeting and
someone says, Before you go,
you must go and see the Lab.
We have an open access bit by
reception at the front to offer
people a space to browse, look
through some of the things
people have created while they’ve
been here or written later about
what they’ve done here, the
web logs, and video summaries.
It’s hard to capture what does
happen here because it’s really
about the experience.
People who come in for the first
time have an idea about what it
is, because they’ve heard there’s
innovative use of multi-media
or someone recommended the
way interdisciplinary research is
enabled here. And they want to
straight away go into the space
start looking at the computers
and we have to explain, No, it’s
not a computer lab and it’s not
a teaching support centre, it’s
about facilitation and support for
collaborative working. And they
have an idea what these things
mean, from their perspective. A
lot of the first few conversations,
and visits to the Lab, involve
trying to find a common
language and approach to
communicate what the Lab can
do and how it’s different. Every
semester we have a two-day open
working group on collaborative
research, which shares what’s
been happening in the Lab’s
experimental projects involving
artists and designers and other
practitioners with room for
dialogue to stretch what different
academic disciplines, and the
school, defines as research.
In the first year there was a lot
of outreach to different parts
of the school and an effort to
explain. But since the school
is made up of academics who
can talk definitions and theories
of knowledge until the cows
come home, that didn’t seem to
work as well as giving people
access to the collaborative group
experiences the Lab offers.
So that meant instead of the
idea that internal LSE groups
coming to the Lab to ask to
be supported, the Lab had to
invent some projects. These
had the function of bringing
quite different individuals from
across the school together,
across traditional disciplinary
2
 The Lab needs to work out how to use technology
now to help sow seeds even at this early stage.
How can technology enable ongoing discussions
after this event?
3
boundaries, as well as experts have, who are trying to do
and practitioners and companies something, or discuss something
from outside. By the second year together. They don’t necessarily
we found that we had to do less end up agreeing, and if they
of this because people started are academics, they’d argue
coming to the Lab with ideas that about the possibility of reaching
they wanted us to help with, and consensus, but the quality of
with some of them the language dialogue is more valuable from
was now in place to enable us to people having an experience here
work together. together. Sometimes closer to the
realm of theatre or ritual than
How would I describe the Lab? normal academia.
It’s a physical environment,
but it’s also a network or set of
networks of people who have
connected with each other
through working together in the
space somehow. I think people
get quite different things out of it
and certainly some projects seem
to find coherence from people
going through a set of processes
together here. At the most
basic level it’s about a shared
experience that a group of people
Voice 2
The way I came across the Lab
was in conversation with another
person running a departmental
group here. I’d received emails
about it and there was something
on the intranet but I hadn’t really
paid much attention. A couple of
the staff had mentioned it but it
seemed like another government-
pleasing RAE-driven innovation
initiative and I can’t keep track
of everything. The colleague I
was talking to was explaining
how she had been trying to get
students together with graduate
students to take the pressure off
teaching staff, a sort of unofficial
mentoring scheme, and that
the Lab had provided a way of
getting people to work together
that was helpful. At the time I
had a situation where there was
a vocal group of students who
wanted to develop a project
that was partially outside of the
department. We’d explained
the way the school worked
and resources available and
obviously they understood the
course requirements but they
were insistent that they wanted
to collaborate with some design
students from Central St Martins.
The course leader and I thought
we might as well go and see the
Lab people and invited a couple
of the students who brought
along some of the Central St
Martins students.
And eventually we decided to
arrange a day there to see what
might happen, no commitment at
this stage. We told the students
it was up to them to convince
us how this collaboration was
going to benefit them, and the
department. We left them to it,
although I think a couple of the
research students were actually
quite involved, and the course
leader was very insistent that I
attended for the whole day that
they arranged. By this stage there
were about 40 people involved
so I had to really and I was
curious to see what they had
come up with.
The interesting thing about the
project as it then developed
was that it managed to work
both within the department,
and between the school and St
Martins, without getting too
many backs up. A lot of this
was down to the fact that the
Lab facilitators had a process for
getting a diverse group of people
to work together and focus on
ideas. But they weren’t the people
moving the initiative along. Both
our students and St Martins
managed to bring together an
interesting mix of people who
4
 My vision is a series of possible physical spaces and conceptual
spaces where different disciplines within the LSE with different
interests outside the school, other institutions, universities or corporate or
government and individuals. To be a facilitator or champion for that kind of
practice.

began to feel quite passionate by having the students involved

about exploring design with
the sorts of things we do in our
department. So what resulted
was a very creative project by the
students which met all the course
requirements and challenged our
thinking about what we needed
to provide them with.
with their facilitators. It’s not just
about a room booking with some
video cameras and whiteboards
and a website. It’s also a way of
working, a design process, that’s
on offer and that’s provided us
with a lot to think about.

We then started thinking about

formalizing the arrangement and
giving it three years so we put
in a funding application which
was successful. Again the Lab
was a resource for helping us
work out what we wanted to do
and for supporting its evolution
over the three years. It wasn’t
that the project only happened
in the Lab or indeed that it was
their initiative. It was useful in
providing a place for us to come
together and work together, and
help us track it and document it

5
Voice 3
I’m from a new media production
company and I’m here because
someone told me about the e-
learning tools they have here. So
I’ve come along to find out more
after looking on the website.
Apparently you’re only allowed
in this bit but they said I can
have a look round inside when
the people in there have finished.
On the Lab website it talked
about innovative collaborative
tools to support learning
but I haven’t seen anything
particularly special so far. They
seem mostly to have web pages
with links to videos and images
and documents to download, but
none of the three dimensional
learning spaces that my company
has been developing. I’d like to
see if there’s a way we could help
the Lab develop and push the
technology along.
We’ve developed a software tool
that allows teachers and students
to create knowledge objects and
make them available to other
participants and edit what they
find in the space and keep adding
to it, like a Wiki. Our software
is extremely simple and it’s a
lot cheaper than other packages
commercially available. We want
to sell it directly to schools and
colleges in the UK but also in
developing countries. I’ve been
wondering if there’s a way for
us to have access to some of the
LSE’s research about learning.
Maybe our software could
be a test case for researchers
here to study, sociologists or
psychologists. They certainly
have onsite students and offsite
collaborators, which is exactly
what we have designed for. It
might be that researchers here
have insights into how dispersed
networks of people manage their
learning and this could feed back
into our product development.
However I’ve seen the Lab’s
list of partners, which includes
several big technology companies
so I’m slightly concerned that
they wouldn’t be open to our
approach. One of the problems
might well be intellectual
property if we did create a
version of our lightweight
software for the Lab to trial,
because we wouldn’t be able to
defend our IP if one of these big
companies adopted our ideas. Or
it might be that we are simply
too small for the Lab to deal
with. I’m hoping someone can
help.
6
 Voice 4
You almost need projects to be the reason for people to come together but My assistant phoned the Lab catering and so on. But they
the traditional academic ways of doing this would be too slow. earlier and I’m not really sure seem to think we need to have
I would hope a research lab like this could at least be quicker to start things they were very helpful. We’re a walk-through or induction or
trying to find a room for the something before even being able
off. But the word ‘lab’ suggests a place where data is gathered so I don’t
new autumn guest lecture to put a date in the diary so now
know what a research lab in a social sciences institution could be. programme and I thought we I have to do that. I happened
could use that space. The school to walk past the Lab the other
secured sponsorship from one day – I’m not usually in that
of the big banks and there are a building – and saw they had a
series of distinguished speakers reception for a global consulting
coming. My job is to bring in the firm so it’s ridiculous if they can’t
speakers and market it. One of accommodate a LSE event.
the speakers is coming from MIT
and a colleague suggested using
the Lab since it’s the nearest
thing we’ve got to the resources
they have there. We don’t need
that large a venue, it’s invite
only, and my assistant spoke to
the people who do the booking
for the Lab. He explained what
we needed in terms of room
size and documenting and

7

How can you get people into the right collaborative
frame of mind? We waste hundreds of hours every
year. What I want this space for is as a catalyst for
increasing the productivity of research, of teaching,
and improving the administration to reduce waste.
Look at how we conduct committees.
Voice 5
There’s a long-standing discussion
about the nature of economics as
a discipline, whether it’s a science
or not and how sciences emerge.
One of the reasons I came to LSE
was obviously its reputation but
also the range of understandings
about what economics means. I
was expecting most of the things
we do on the course to be much
as they are – lectures, guest
lectures, seminars, tutorials. I’d
like to see more visits organized
by the school into locations
relevant to the subject but
people here rarely seem to leave
the building. I like going for
walks around London, both the
immediate environment like
Covent Garden or across to the
City to places like the museum
at the Bank of England. It’s a
way of embedding myself in the
fabric of the city, and researching
in a personal way the economic
landscape. Undergraduate
economics is terribly dry,
otherwise.
I have a tutorial next week and
I want to use the time to try
and get a bit deeper into the
subject beyond the stuff I have
to do. About a month ago I
went down to the Lab they have
here and talked to one of the
people. They invited me to sign
up for an event that happened
a week ago that was a sort of
interdisciplinary seminar. There
were lecturers and researchers
from the school but a mix of
departments, all looking at the
theme of risk, a research project.
That’s central to economics and
finance but I hadn’t thought
about it in relation to media or
anthropology. There were some
people from outside the school
too, journalists, security and
software people. I’m not sure
what the point of it all was but
it was extremely interesting.
One of the things I had to do
in exchange for being invited to
the seminar was help with some
filming for their online journal.
I ended up working late with
this filmmaker who works in
the Lab part time and she’s now
asked me to spend a morning on
a walk on the some of the routes
I take round London. She wants
to video me talking about the
economic aspects to the route. At
my tutorial I want to see if I can
do more of this sort of thing as
part of my course.
8

One important thing to remember is that there’s
no one LSE. People talk about it as if it was a
unified thing but in fact it’s very disparate and
fractured. There’s a great deal of diversity and
that would need to be reflected in the Lab.
9
Voice 6
When the Lab was first set up
there were ambitions about using
it to expand research agendas
within academia and improve
the schools’ interface to the
outside world. But it’s hard to
evaluate to what extent it’s done
anything like that. In the first
year we had teething problems
with the school, partially as a
result of misperceptions about
two of the commercial partners
we had involved. There was
the feeling that they had made
commitments about technology
but in the end there didn’t seem
to be an awful lot of new kit in
the Lab, and certainly nothing
that we didn’t have already.
Various people who had
experience of multimedia labs
and computer training in other
institutions were openly critical.
But the Lab got on with doing
things and by the end of the first
year there seemed to be a user
base and a list of external parties
who’d been involved somehow
in events. It did seem to be
successful at attracting people
from across the school, but
mostly the sort of people who
are early adopters.
By the third year the core team
were talking about the next set
of activities we thought the Lab
could enable in the school. By
this stage we’d been approached
by a major company who
wanted to invest a huge amount
of money into the Lab and this
made the emerging discussion a
lot more heated. There was one
group of people who thought
the Lab was successful as being
an open, accessible space with
a reasonable booking system
which research and teaching
staff, and students, all were able
to use to support their work.
Some of the things going on were
smallscale, and some of them
were high profile events, and
brought in a lot of outsiders who
mostly seemed to be positive.
The designers involved since the
beginning had helped us work
out the technology and physical
environment we needed and
there seemed to be a group of
students, ex-student hangers-on
and professional facilitators who
kept the place functional and
feeling alive.
The other group of people in
the school were less interested
in the idea of the Lab being
a supportive, discursive
environment and wanted to
use the Lab as a laboratory, a
site for research. The argument
they made was the familiar
one that social sciences have
poor feedback mechanisms
from theory and teaching into
practice. This group wanted to
design some research projects
that used the people using the
Lab, sometimes without their
knowledge, for observation and
to try out ideas being developed
by researchers in economics and
media and communications. The
sorts of things this would mean
might include introducing more
obvious market mechanisms
around access to the Lab and so
on (the Easyjet “book early and
it costs less model” and Amazon
style ratings for facilitators had
been introduced right from the
beginning).
This debate went on for about
a year while negotiations with
the corporate sponsor were
continuing. In the end an
agreement was reached that
meant that the sponsor wanted to
be involved in helping establish
the research agenda because
it would feed back into their
product innovation work, and
this put off many of the research
academics. There was a feeling in
the school that the Lab was now
compromised by the relationship
to the sponsor so the research
agenda lost momentum. After
another six months, the Lab
stabilized back into being a space
for collaboration and interfacing
with the outside world but some
of the energy was gone.
10

If they try to adopt an external model it will fail.
They need to work out the values of the LSE
itself to create their own model. There’s plenty
of evidence of failure of attaching on to an
organization a model that won’t work.
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Voice 7
I work here in the Lab part time.
I started in my third year when
I got involved in a project in my
department. Initially it seemed
a lot to put in, particularly in
my final year, but I ended up
learning a whole set of skills, and
conceptual skills that I’ve really
enjoyed learning. I think what’s
interesting about the Lab is the
way it puts into practice some
really interesting theories about
learning. On my course we had
to read the key texts and so I
already knew a lot about learning
and decision making in groups,
but when I got involved in the
Lab it was like seeing it in action.
I’m freelance like most of the
people here but there is a job
coming up which I’m thinking
of applying for. It would mean
that I get more directly involved
with any user group who wants
to work in the Lab. The job
involves a lot of design – helping
a group of people work out
what they want to do and how
to use the Lab’s resources. It’s
a bit like being a translator.
You have an understanding of
group dynamics and design
processes and of course so do the
academics but they’re coming at
it from a theoretical perspective.
They don’t actually know how
to get the most from a disparate
group of people sitting in a
room together trying to achieve
something. That part of the job
all sounds interesting but there’s
also a load of paperwork that’s
involved, performance indicators
and measurement of expectations
and how the Lab delivers
against them. The Lab director
encouraged us to work creatively
with what that means but it just
translates into a load of forms I
will have to fill in.
Voice 8
This is my third trip to the I have found it useful to have There seem to be conflicting pressures
LSE Lab in a year. I’m from a a look on the website when I and possibilities. There’s a danger
university in Berlin that has go back to Berlin. Often the that a solution will be engineered to
links with the LSE and I’m documents on the web are not
fit a supply side opportunity because
involved with colleagues here on well labelled but I recognize
a European funded project. The my colleague’s handwriting and
there’s a space available, rather than
way things are organized here diagrams and it brings back what user need driving the Lab and its
is unusual. The quality of the we were taking about. But you design.
outputs is a lot less finished than really have to do a lot of work to
elsewhere. On each of the trips turn these raw ideas into proper
I’ve been part of a group of 10 documents. I still end up writing
people spending a day at the Lab. something and emailing it.
In normal academic meetings
someone would agree to write
up a summary of the discussion
and this would be circulated by
email. What happens here is that
throughout the day a series of
papers emerge and get put on
the website so you end up with a
record of all the things that went
on, visual and textual and video.
It’s all very raw, not well edited
or laid out graphically, nothing
you would want to publish. But

612
 Voice 9
I remember going to a restaurant
in Italy on holiday and we were
given the menu and we ordered.
And as we were sitting there we
saw this other party of people,
Italians, who had this amazing
pasta brought to their table and
we couldn’t see it on the menu.
So we asked the waiter and he
said it had run out. And then
they had something else and
again, we asked if we could
have it and we couldn’t. And it
turned out that they had pre-
ordered their food, perhaps they
were local, and so they’d got this
customized meal whereas we
had only what was on the menu.
We still got food made to order
but not the lobster ravioli. The
13
Lab is a bit like this. Sometimes could see people peeping in at
the space is being used by two what we were doing and they
or three different groups at once, were definitely wondering why
sometimes it’s arranged for one they only had the spaghetti on
big group. So as a group you their menu. The thing is, it’s not
are in your own discrete area really about money. It’s not that
doing your thing but you get a what we had cost more, it’s more
peep at what the other people to do with knowing how the
over there are up to. The group menu works and what to expect.
I am part of includes people
from the school and people from
other universities. I wouldn’t say
we are a team but we’ve been
meeting on and off for a year or
so in the Lab. To continue with
the Italian restaurant analogy,
we now know how to order in
advance. We know we want
the lobster ravioli so we order
enough for 15 people. But I
Voice 10
We had a grim meeting the other
day. In this kind of institution
after a while you learn to lower
your expectations about the
amount you can achieve but
that meeting was a particularly
depressing one. One of my
colleagues was proposing a new
MSc. He’d done all the research,
had the background on where
else it was being offered and
the kinds of modules the school
should offer. So he was at the
initial stage of putting it into
the LSE machine by coming out
at a departmental meeting. He
suggested that it might be an
idea to see if there was a way
of the Lab being involved. He
said he’d been a guest at some
of the activities there, one thing interested I really don’t have the
initiated by another department, time. He sent round an email the
another, bizarrely, by someone other day a writer talking at the
who has nothing to do with the Lab and a creative multimedia
school. documentation workshop. It’s not
really my thing but I might send
You could see he was quite one of the graduate students.
energized by what they do there
and strongly recommended that
the department, as a department,
go and have a look. This
brought up a whole discussion
about e-learning and the role of
technology in education and the
usual suspects round the room
shared their expertise and after
20 minutes we’d completely
drifted off the topic. We didn’t
really have time to discuss it
properly and although I’m
14
 This isn’t necessarily a teaching environment but it is a
learning environment. What are the tangible outcomes that
people come out with? Learning isn’t a monolithic process;
it’s lots of different things in different contexts. How does the
LSE want to interact with the rest of the world?

15
Innovation Series
This White Paper forms part of
the Innovation Series being run by
innovateUK, the innovation centre of
Cap Gemini Ernst & Young.
For further information about
future seminars and events contact:
innovateuk@capgemini.co.uk
Tel: +44 20 7297 3984
Fax: +44 20 7297 3985
About Cap Gemini Ernst & Young
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