# Introduction *In this chapter, we will provide background information on the UNDP Accelerator Labs, explain our organizational structure, give a brief overview of the evolution of our practice, outline the purpose of this guide, clarify its target audience and discuss how to ensure it is relevant to your initiatives.* ## About the Accelerator Labs The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Accelerator Labs were designed as a globally distributed, agile and dynamic learning network addressing complex and emerging sustainable development challenges. The Accelerator Labs reimagine sustainable development for the 21st century and attempt to close the gap between the current practices of international development and the accelerated pace of change and uncertainty. The Network was launched in 2019 with an initial cohort of 60 Labs, followed by an additional 31 Labs in 2020, bringing the total to 91 Labs across 115 countries. This global recruitment brought together 273 social innovation experts with diverse backgrounds: 72% were brand new to the UN system, 65% came from the private and non-profit sectors, academia and government, and 24% were members of the diaspora who returned to their home countries to join the Accelerator Labs Network.[\[1\]](#footnote-0) Over the past six years, the Accelerator Labs have demonstrably pushed sustainable development forward. We have empowered collectives, worked from the bottom up and harnessed evidence and data to build momentum for change in more than 100 countries. We are making a tangible impact on multiple fronts, from advancing climate resilience to transforming food systems and reimagining public services. Furthermore, the Accelerator Labs have played a crucial role in strengthening UNDP’s organizational renewal capacity, enabling the implementation of the strategic plan, and enhancing corporate capabilities in foresight, strategic innovation and digital transformation. ## How we are structured The Accelerator Labs Network is designed as a learning system that balances country-level exploration and experimentation with global coordination and curation. Instead of one centralized R\&D unit developing solutions from headquarters, we tapped into the emergence that happens when 90 Lab teams embedded in UNDP’s Country Offices choose their own challenges, methods and partners. The contexts where these Labs operate range from: large ocean states to drought-affected Sahel countries on the climate change frontline; from a carbon-negative nation to cities choking with air pollution; from rapidly growing populations to countries facing demographic decline; from conflict zones and fragile states to stable democracies; from low-income to rapidly developing economies. This geographical spread gives us rich insights into the diversity and emergence of new development challenges and innovations across the globe. To support this distributed approach, a global team[\[2\]](#footnote-1) curates the Network of Accelerator Labs. This central team is responsible for: * Creating the conditions for the Network to thrive by strengthening connections between Labs and individual Labbers; providing tools, platforms and activities that enable knowledge, solutions and innovations to flow across the Network * Elevating knowledge generated throughout the Network, identifying global patterns in emerging development challenges and opportunities, and translating these insights into global R\&D agendas * Providing strategic direction, global advocacy and methodological support to enhance the Network’s impact and coherence * Managing overall project operations, maintaining relationships with principal donors, global partners and internal stakeholders; overseeing finances and human resource management * Monitoring and evaluating our results, documenting outcomes and reporting impact to stakeholders. ## What does an Accelerator Lab look like? At the core of an Accelerator Lab are three distinct yet complementary positions: a Head of Solutions Mapping, a Head of Exploration and a Head of Experimentation (see Table 1).[\[3\]](#footnote-2) By design, the Accelerator Lab employs a flat structure with no designated leader of the Lab or team. This non-hierarchical approach encourages equal collaboration and shared ownership of processes and outcomes. The three positions are often complemented by interns, external specialists and colleagues with specific policy or technical expertise in global development areas.

Head of Solutions Mapping

The Head of Solutions Mapping identifies grassroots innovations by directly engaging with communities to discover existing solutions created by those closest to the problems. This role bridges indigenous knowledge and community initiatives with formal development processes.

Core skills:
Ethnographic research, participatory methods, systems thinking, behavioral insights, co-creation, community asset mapping, Human Centered Design

Educational background:
Anthropology, social or behavioral science, design, architecture, communications more desirable outcomes.

Head of Exploration

The Head of Exploration scans for emerging trends and patterns that may impact future development. This role transforms complex challenges into actionable insights and provides intelligence on frontier issues by utilizing non-traditional data sources.

Core skills:
Futures and foresight, data science, systems thinking, crowdsourcing, AI or machine learning, partnership building

Educational background: Social science, data science, statistics, Computer Science, business intelligence

Head of Experimentation

The Head of Experimentation designs and manages prototypes and experiments to test ideas and gather evidence on what works. This role facilitates collaborative experimentation that builds stakeholder ownership and enables ecosystem scaling.

Core skills:
Design of experiments, prototyping, systems thinking, behavioral insights, co-creation, design thinking

Educational background: Social or behavioral science, Complexity Science, engineering, design, psychology


*Table 1: Overview of the three Accelerator Lab positions and core competencies* These three positions, when working in concert, enable communities and ecosystems to mobilize collective learning and action, enabling them to work smarter, together, in addressing the urgent developmental challenges faced by communities and countries. Each Accelerator Lab operates with both resources and a unique mandate. While the budget is modest, it provides essential flexibility for activities like developing prototypes, conducting experiments, organizing community meetings and supporting field work. Alongside these resources, Labs have a [mandate](/undp-accelerator-labs/references/glossary.md#mandate) with a specific focus on learning and exploring beyond traditional boundaries. They have permission to: * Explore new areas of work outside the current scope of UNDP offices, or investigate challenges that sit at the intersection of two or more areas (e.g. digital and financial inclusion) or organizational silos * Engage with overlooked parts of the [ecosystem](/undp-accelerator-labs/references/glossary.md#ecosystem) and partner with non-traditional actors,[\[4\]](#footnote-3) learning with and from informal waste workers and traditional herbalists to poets[\[5\]](#footnote-4) and hackers, from youth movements to tech start-ups[\[6\]](#footnote-5) * Experiment with new methods and technologies, figuring out how to combine them to accelerate development * Embrace intelligent failure by testing ideas and interventions to find out what works and what doesn’t, where there is momentum for change * Pivot and change course when new insights emerge, capitalizing on unexpected discoveries This combination of mandate, resources and capabilities – along with being part of a global Network – enables Labs to navigate an uncertain world and boost R\&D that creates value across development ecosystems. ## How has our practice evolved? When we were designing the blueprint in 2018 for what would later become the Accelerator Labs Network, we evaluated a wide range of methods – using Nesta’s Landscape of Innovation Approaches (see Figure 1) – but focused on two key questions: Which methods give us an immediate sense of today rather than yesterday? And which methods enable interoperability with others? ![Figure 1: Landscape of Innovation Approaches.\[7\]](/files/f3dbdf1229b0a025367dd3a632ba53c2bb58ef79) Based on these questions, we landed on three essential pillars:[\[8\]](#footnote-7) * Map existing solutions and grassroots innovations to find out what is already working and do more of that. * Experiment to quickly move beyond obvious expert solutions and find out what truly works. * Facilitate collective intelligence by integrating diverse knowledge, data, creativity and ingenuity from communities, government and the private sector to think and act more intelligently and effectively than they would individually. While these core methods continue to guide us and particularly define our practice’s collective nature, our approach has naturally evolved. This evolution was driven by the Labs themselves. As they worked on complex and emerging development challenges across different contexts, they combined their existing skills and experiences with new capabilities, continuously honing and advancing them by using and testing them in practice. Over the years, this has led to a diverse palette of capabilities across the Network and a profound understanding of how to make change in complex environments. A pivotal moment in shaping our practice was the mid-term evaluation in 2021, where the evaluator recommended “to establish the Labs as a permanent R\&D function within UNDP Country Offices around the world.”[\[9\]](#footnote-8) The more we looked into it, the more it made sense to think of establishing an R\&D function as part of a continuous renewal function for UNDP.[\[10\]](#footnote-9) Taking an R\&D lens marked a crucial shift: from emphasizing new ways of working to generating new value and insights. This transition helped us better see what was needed to take our local insights to the global development arena, how to diffuse innovations through local ecosystems, and how to catalyze change through experimentation and radical openness. ![Figure 2: Regional Accelerator Lab Retreat for Asia & The Pacific (Ha Noi, March 2023).](/files/b5b1ebac763a0b5d52c567c1cc7af061da9221f4) To better understand what this R\&D function could look like in practice, we engaged with Labs through regional retreats (Figure 2) and consulted country office management and other key stakeholders. These conversations helped us understand what value such a function could bring to UNDP and the broader development sector, and how to further refine our ideas and embed R\&D as a practice. ## Why this guide? After six years of operating in over 100 countries, our R\&D practice had matured and proven its value. We felt it was time to capture the richness of these practices, understand and document their underpinning logic and spirit, and put it out in the public domain. While our practice emerged from dedicated teams with specific resources and mandates, we believe the insights gained are transferable to different contexts. The very diversity of where and how this practice developed – across different cultures, challenges, and conditions – has brought us invaluable insights into how sustainable development can be done differently. We believe these insights can benefit changemakers, innovators and development practitioners everywhere. Therefore, by the end of 2023, we launched a Network-wide initiative to document our R\&D practice with three objectives in mind: * to share our practice with a broader community of change-makers and enable them to learn from our experiences; * to strengthen and embed our approach within UNDP and other development organizations working towards sustainable development; * to connect with other initiatives and practices to enable collaboration and address complex development issues together. ## How this guide was developed To do justice to the multifaceted nature of our practice, we recognised that only a Network-wide codification effort would capture its full richness. Over six months, we embarked on a co-creation exercise to document our R\&D practice, collecting hundreds of field stories and organizing over 12,000 documents from six years of practice. To create a common language for our diverse methods and approaches, the global team developed a data standard that enabled Labs to systematically share their tools, methods, principles, tactics and stories of scale. This structured approach captured the diversity of our practice while setting the foundation for identifying common patterns and approaches.

Figure 3: Solution Mappers mapping out and discussing the principles of their practice (Antigua, May 2024).

Central to this effort were three workshops, called “Codification Fests,” bringing together Solution Mappers in Antigua (Figure 3), Explorers in Abidjan and Experimenters in Thimphu, between May and July 2024. These four-day fests were designed to celebrate our work while gathering essential insights for this guide and strengthening bonds across the Network. Before and after these fests, we organized remote sessions to collect preliminary inputs or analyze and synthesize fest outputs. Following these gatherings, a small team of editors began analyzing the outputs, drawing out insights, developing frameworks to help navigate our practice and its core elements such as the twelve practices,[\[11\]](#footnote-10) mapping out R\&D journeys, and writing vignettes to illustrate our practice in action. ## Who this guide is for This guide serves experienced changemakers who operate at different levels of a development ecosystem and who have a couple of years of “uncertainty work”[\[12\]](#footnote-11) under their belt. It is written for those changemakers who want to set up an R\&D function, whether that be a single unit or lab, a distributed capability like the Accelerator Lab Network, or who want to amplify their current initiative or work with a stronger collective and R\&D focus. We hope newcomers to the field may also find this guide useful to take the first steps of their journey. However, if you’re seeking step-by-step instructions on managing R\&D or innovation processes, navigating uncertainty, facilitating complex workshops, or implementing specific methods, this guide is not for you. To better understand our key audience and how it works, we conducted user research with changemakers across various contexts and organizations. From this research, two distinct groups of practitioners emerged, each operating with different constraints but often working toward similar goals: “institutional changemakers” and “middleground changemakers” (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Our target audience operates primarily in middleground and institutional spaces with intermediate to advanced experience in uncertainty work.
Institutional changemakers work within formal structures like government agencies, international organizations and corporations. These practitioners often navigate complex organizational dynamics while implementing large-scale initiatives. The middleground[\[13\]](#footnote-12) changemakers work in the vital space between institutional and grassroots levels, often acting as bridges and catalysts. They might be community organizers, social entrepreneurs or consultants who can move fluidly between formal and informal contexts. We hope you identify with either of these roles, or perhaps both. If you’re reading this guide, you’re likely someone who is committed to driving meaningful change in complex environments. Your background might be in community work, you might have expertise in specific innovation methods or you might bring experience from other domains. What sets you apart is that you’re comfortable with the discomfort of working with complexity, [ambiguity](/undp-accelerator-labs/references/glossary.md#ambiguity) and [uncertainty](/undp-accelerator-labs/references/glossary.md#uncertainty). Whether you work from an institutional or middleground position, you play an essential role in the ecosystem. As an institutional changemaker, you bring resources, scale and formal authority. As a middleground changemaker, you contribute agility, deep community connections and the ability to rapidly prototype and adapt solutions. In today's world, we assume all changemakers engage in R\&D – whether consciously or not. Creating sustainable change requires constantly learning and diffusing your insights, knowledge and solutions. This guide helps you reflect on your R\&D efforts and pursue them more intentionally and effectively. ## How to use this guide This guide serves as a practical resource rather than a prescriptive manual. We recognize that R\&D functions vary widely across contexts, and your initiative will likely differ from the UNDP Accelerator Labs in scope, resources or organizational context. However, the principles, practices and insights shared here can be adapted to suit your specific needs and situation. The guide offers multiple entry points depending on where you are in your R\&D journey: * **For those doing social change work and developing new ways of working:** Use this guide to navigate change processes while learning from iterations, creating and holding space for an exploratory mandate that drives learning and collective action. * **For those thinking about setting up an R\&D function:** Use this guide to shape your thinking, develop a compelling rationale and create legitimacy for your vision. The documented experiences and frameworks can help you articulate the value proposition of R\&D in sustainable development to stakeholders and decision makers. * **For those designing a new R\&D function:** Consider this guide as a navigational tool that illuminates various pathways and possibilities. It offers practical insights on structuring teams, embedding R\&D practices within existing systems, and designing processes that embrace complexity and uncertainty and enable collective learning and action. * **For those managing existing R\&D initiatives:** Use the guide as a reflective lens to examine your current work, identifying aspects of your practice to amplify, refine or improve. The stories and frameworks from our initiative may inspire new approaches or validate intuitions you’ve developed through your own practice. We invite you to engage with this guide with an open mind: embrace what resonates, adjust what requires change and enhance these foundations to establish an R\&D function tailored to your specific context and challenges. The core of R\&D is rooted in learning and adaptability, and we aspire for this guide to serve as a dynamic resource in your personal journey of exploration and innovation. ## What’s in this guide? This guide is organized into three sections. Each section serves as a lens to help you learn about our R\&D practice through a specific perspective: understanding, doing and advancing. The first section, *Understanding R\&D*, lays the conceptual foundations for our practice. The second section, *Doing R\&D*, illustrates and provides guidance on practically implementing our approach. The third section, *Advancing R\&D*, reflects on our practice more broadly and points out priorities for future development. The following overview describes each chapter’s content and what you’ll learn as you read them. {% hint style="info" %} Content structure #### **Understanding R\&D:** * [**Chapter 1: R\&D For Sustainable Development** ](/undp-accelerator-labs/understanding-r-and-d/1.-r-and-d-for-sustainable-development.md)explains why sustainable development needs R\&D and the unique value this approach brings. * [**Chapter 2: The Fundamentals of Collective R\&D**](/undp-accelerator-labs/understanding-r-and-d/2.-the-fundamentals-of-collective-r-and-d.md) introduces the principles, modes and practices that define our approach to R\&D. #### **Doing R\&D:** * [**Chapter 3: Setting Up an R\&D Capability**](/undp-accelerator-labs/doing-r-and-d/3.-setting-up-an-r-and-d-capability.md) provides practical guidance on establishing an R\&D function, from a single unit to a distributed capability. * **C**[**hapter 4: R\&D Journeys**](/undp-accelerator-labs/doing-r-and-d/4.-r-and-d-journeys.md) illustrates our approach through real-world examples from India, Kenya and Argentina. * [**Chapter 5: R\&D Practices**](broken://pages/RnzCqIIWsvS4xZQVGRuA) expands on our twelve core practices with detailed descriptions, reflection questions and illustrative case studies. * [**Chapter 6: R\&D Methods & Enabling Technologies**](/undp-accelerator-labs/doing-r-and-d/6.-r-and-d-methods-and-enabling-technologies.md) offers an overview of frequently used methods and technologies that support R\&D work. #### **Advancing R\&D:** * [**Chapter 7: Taking Collective R\&D Further** ](/undp-accelerator-labs/advancing-r-and-d/7.-taking-collective-r-and-d-further.md)addresses outstanding questions and considerations for the future of R\&D in sustainable development. * [**Epilogue: No Failure if There Is Learning**](/undp-accelerator-labs/advancing-r-and-d/epilogue-no-failure-if-there-is-learning.md) reflects on paradoxes we encountered building collective R\&D inside existing institutions. {% endhint %} At the end of this guide, the references section includes a comprehensive [glossary](/undp-accelerator-labs/references/glossary.md) featuring 100 essential terms and concepts that define our R\&D practice. This glossary serves as both a reference guide and learning resource, helping you understand key terminology and assisting you in explaining these concepts to others as you develop your own R\&D initiatives. *** ## **Notes** 1. UNDP Accelerator Labs (2020, p. 7) [↑](#footnote-ref-0) 2. To carry out these diverse responsibilities, the global team brings together specialists with complementary expertise in sustainable development, policy analysis, data science, knowledge management, learning design, facilitation, community building, social media and communications, partnership development, monitoring and evaluation, operations and finance. [↑](#footnote-ref-1) 3. To learn more about these roles see the “What we talk about when we talk about…” blog series where three Lab members reflect on their positions: Basma Saeed (2020) on Solutions Mapping, Sofía Paredes Chaux (2020) on Exploration, and Ehsan Gul (2021) on Experimentation. [↑](#footnote-ref-2) 4. Anderson (2022) [↑](#footnote-ref-3) 5. See, for example, how UNDP Somalia (2024) worked with poets and storytellers for peace building. [↑](#footnote-ref-4) 6. Over five years, the Labs have established 2,000 partnerships across academia, private sector, civil society, UN agencies and governments – including both traditional and non-traditional partners – with half being UNDP's first engagement with those partners. [↑](#footnote-ref-5) 7. Leurs (2018b) [↑](#footnote-ref-6) 8. See our Project Document (UNDP, 2019). [↑](#footnote-ref-7) 9. Christensen (2021) [↑](#footnote-ref-8) 10. See, for a brief origins story and reflections, Gina Lucarelli’s blog, “The secret UNDP Accelerator Labs plan (just between you and me)” (Lucarelli, 2023b). [↑](#footnote-ref-9) 11. We used activity theory to analyze and better understand what we do to make big steps forward. In activity theory, activities are understood as purposeful interactions of a subject with the world (Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2006, p. 31). In short, what people do to achieve something. While there are more advanced frameworks for analyzing activities, such as Yrjö Engeström's Activity System Model (Engeström, 1987, p. 78), the basic structure of activity sufficed for our purpose. [↑](#footnote-ref-10) 12. See Vaugn Tan’s work on the uncertainty mindset (Tan, 2023; Tan, 2019) and implications of uncertainty on team design (Tan, 2020). [↑](#footnote-ref-11) 13. The term “middleground” is borrowed from Patrick Cohendet's work on innovation ecosystems (see Cohendet et al., 2010), where he originally used the terms upper, middle and lower ground. We deliberately choose to use only the term “middleground” as it describes this vital connecting space without implying any hierarchy between institutional and grassroots levels. Both are equally important parts of the innovation ecosystem, each bringing unique and valuable contributions to social change. [↑](#footnote-ref-12) --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://bas-leurss-personal-organization.gitbook.io/undp-accelerator-labs/introduction.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.