In September 2017 the first multi-year standing lab undertaken by NouLAB was launched on the topic of Economic
Immigration. Along with more traditional Social Innovation Lab methodologies such as design thinking, systemic
design and Social Labs structures as defined by Hassan (2014), Jones (2014), and Westley et al. (2015), NouLAB
employed the participatory practices of the Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter (AoH) to design
and facilitate lab sessions.
The Economic Immigration Lab (EIL) has run for 18 months, and two full cycles. NouLAB has identified
linkages between the AoH approach and the systemic principles of design. Of specific interest is how multi-stakeholder
participants’ learning and capacity is effectively enabled by the practice of holding space, encouraging an atmosphere
of psychological safety, experimentation, learning, and addressing root causes of problems.

Authors: Lewis Muirhead, Rosamund Mosse