Abstract
There is new interest within academic institutions to build partnerships across traditional geographic and disciplinary boundaries. Yet there are also inherent conflicts between the typically centralized nature of institutions and the decentralized nature of partnerships. Despite this conflict, the proliferation of new labs, studios, and hybrid research-practice consortia suggest a sustained interest in cross-platform collaboration, especially where programs aim to address the looming questions of sustainability, adaptation, and future environments. The value of these labs is discussed in terms of their novel cross-disciplinary approach to problem-solving, their integrated research-learning environments, and their ability to leverage partnerships to support new types of resourcing. The MIT’s “Living Labs” (2010-present) initiative is reviewed as an exemplar for this unique research environment given its broad influence and adoption, particularly in the European context. This paper describes a notable tendency however to only ever implicitly recognize the importance of individual researcher networks in value creation despite the significant explicit value of such networks. This oversight is considered a derivative outcome of poor alignment between centralized institutional planning and decentralized project teams. A case is then made for institutions to lean in to decentralization by moving from a culture of “best practice” to “bottom-up innovation” in order to leverage the unique talents and networks of project teams at the project level. A final reflection is given to the lingering distrust of decentralized systems in academia to explain the slow development of research partnerships despite the unique investment profile of academic institutions in learning and research.
Presenters
Daniel IrvingDocent-Onderzoeker Landschapsarchitectuur en Stedenbouw, Landscape & Planning, VHL University of Applied Science, Gelderland, Netherlands
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2023 Special Focus—Rethinking Organizational Resilience
KEYWORDS
DECENTRALISATION, LIVING LABS, ACTOR NETWORKS, RESEARCH MODELS
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