Over the past three years, EWMI ACCESS has been intensively using co-creation and social lab approaches when planning new initiatives.
Co-creation is a participatory process that involves people of different expertise and background to solve concrete social problems. By engaging diverse stakeholders, the approach stimulates innovative thinking and encourages bolder decision-making. In the past years, many governments, as well as private and civic organizations, have used the co-creation method to find alternative solutions to complex social issues and put these alternatives to the test of practice.
The social lab approach is also participatory at heart, lasting for long periods of time and aiming to solve even more complex issues. When compared to the standard project-based approach, where a project’s logical framework and timeframe are strictly defined in advance, social labs are experimental in nature and enable participants to generate new ideas and prototypes, and test them over and over again.
To promote these methods, with support from EWMI ACCESS, the Center for Training and Consultancy (CTC) issued the first-ever Georgian-language Facilitator’s Guide on Planning and Organizing a Co-creation Process. The guide is tailored to the Georgian context and adapted to the country’s complex social issues. CTC also held a webinar on co-creation and social labs for interested parties on July 29.
Moreover, the CTC also started conducting the first pilot social lab on facilitating access to social entrepreneurship and innovation among Georgian youth.
