Lab Notes - March edition

The March edition of Lab Notes brings together inspiring podcasts, reports, articles and other content for public sector and social innovators around the world, including how to build the perfect country, tech solutions to food waste, an 'empathy methodology' for government, and more...

This month's key lab picks

1. All episodes of the BBC’s ‘My Perfect Country’ programme are now available online. The series brings together examples of successful policies from around the world, from solving water scarcity in Bermuda to cutting poverty in Peru.

2. The Dutch Government has had to get creative to deal with an unusual prison issue: too many empty cells. Read more in the NY Times article.

3. How is technology being used to deepen everyday engagement in local and national politics? Explore lessons from global pioneers in digital democracy in a new report and practitioner's summary from Nesta.

4. The 2017 European Social Innovation Competition has just launched in Athens, Greece. More on this year’s topic of ‘Equality Rebooted’ here.

5. In this Lab Notes exclusive, Christian Bason, author of Leading Public Design: Discovering Human-Centred Governance, writes about how design-led approaches are paving the way for a new governance paradigm.

6. A US-based teacher is seeing test results soar by bridging the gap between what students learn and the real-world context. Read more on the TED-Ed blog.

7. What kinds of challenges does the new political climate pose for evidence? The Alliance for Useful Evidence proposes eight ideas for how the evidence and data movement can respond to the world of ‘Trexit’.

8. Approximately one third of food produced for human consumption is lost every year. See 10 top examples of digital apps that are tackling food waste around the world.

9. Nesta’s Geoff Mulgan gives an overview of what the field of social innovation has achieved over the last decade, what’s missing, and what might be priorities for the decade ahead.

10. The Quipu project is gathering testimonies from victims of the policy of forced sterilisation in Peru in the 1990s, demonstrating the power of personal storytelling to maximise social impact. Read the SIX interview.

11. Anir Chowdhury, Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister's Office in Bangladesh describeshow embedding an ‘empathy methodology’ is helping government officers design better policies for different communities.

12. Two social enterprises, Details Deconstruction and Brick + Board, are ‘upcycling’ Baltimore’s landscape of empty buildings and putting people that face barriers to employment into work. Find out more on Fastcoexist.

13. Calling all government innovators and designers: The UK Government Digital Service is building a global community of individuals to share insights and best practice. Read more about the network and find instructions how to join on the GDS website.