The Innovation Growth Lab (IGL), in collaboration with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the World Bank Group, the Cotec Foundation, the “La Caixa” Banking Foundation and the Inter-American Development Bank, held its annual conference in Barcelona, Spain on June 13-14.

Building on the success of last year’s IGL2016, IGL2017 brought together senior policymakers, practitioners and researchers to:

• Learn about the next generation of innovation and entrepreneurship policies.
• Engage in wide-ranging discussions on crucial policy challenges including automation, inclusive economic growth, directing public innovation funding, and smart regulation to support innovation.
• Improve their organisation’s capability to design policies that deliver measurable impact, using different tools such as randomised controlled trials and big data.
• Meet a global community of peers to learn from and share experiences with.

The two day event had over 50 speakers, including:

• José Miguel Benavente, Competitiveness and Innovation Division Chief, Inter-American Development Bank
• Francesca Bria, Chief Technology and Digital Innovation Officer, Barcelona City Council
• Christopher Cabaldon, Mayor, City of West Sacramento
• Clara Eugenia Garcia, Director General for Research, Development & Innovation, Spanish Government
• Dean Karlan, Professor of Economics, Yale University
• Taina Kulmala, Head of Policy Analysis Unit, Prime Minister’s Office, Finland
• Luiz Martins, Head of Special Projects Area, FINEP (Brazil)
• Andrew Palmer, Business Affairs Editor, The Economist
• Ganesh Rasagam, Practice Manager for the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Unit, World Bank Group
• Raj Thampuram, Managing Director, Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)

The first day, ​Tuesday 13 June, brought together all participants in a series of plenary and interactive parallel sessions, while the second day, Wednesday 14 June, gave participants the choice to attend one of the following:

• IGL Policy & Practice Learning Lab – a practical day of workshops tailored specifically to policy-makers and practitioners working in this space; or
• IGL Research Meeting – an academic meeting with presentations of design-stage, ongoing and completed randomised controlled trials.

Attending IGL2017 also gave participants access to an exclusive opening event of SONAR+D on the evening of the 14 of June, as well as discounted tickets for the event itself.

The Innovation Growth Lab (IGL) is an initiative led by Nesta in partnership with the Kauffman Foundation, the Argidius Foundation, ACCIÓ, the Australian Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, the Austrian Research Promotion Agency, Innovate UK, Innovation Norway, Scottish Enterprise, Tekes, and the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

IGL2017 is organised by Nesta in partnership with: