Case Study: Innovation at CERN’s IdeaSquare
What we learned (and didn’t) in getting scientific community to collaborate with innovators at IdeaSquare
This project was done in collaboration with Wendy Pazmiño as part of the master’s program in Design Management at the IED Barcelona
Innovation Bootcamp
IdeaSquare is an experimental research facility with a focus on innovation located within the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN). The director of the facility is Dr Markus Nordberg, who also leads development and innovation initiatives at CERN. We arrived at CERN on Thursday and had three days to gather as much data as possible for the challenge at hand.
On the surface, IdeaSquare is an unnoticeable space. It sits on a somewhat isolated area of CERN premise. But it is also a critical component of it. As scientists race to answer the most fundamental questions about the laws of nature, they have also had to build the tools to help them answer the most vexing questions.
The idea around IdeaSquare is to get physicists and industry leaders to work together to build solutions that can have an impact on society.
A Space for Innovation But No People
But in IdeaSquare’s initiative, there was a problem. As IdeaSquare opened to the scientific community, no one was coming in.
This seemed odd at first. How is it possible that we’ve managed to gather all of the world’s leading scientist working with cutting-edge technology, and yet cannot seem to collaborate with other sectors to bring meaningful solutions to society?
Our purpose for this project was not just to understand the why, but to gather data that could lead us in a direction that might encourage participation among physicists and industry leaders. In the tradition of design thinking, we proposed the following challenge: How might we foster interactions between the scientific community and non-scientific community (i.e. Innovators, entrepreneurs) to work on ideas that benefit society?
How might we foster interactions between the scientific community and non-scientific community (i.e. Innovators, entrepreneurs) to work on ideas that benefit society?
Our Approach To The Solution
One of the biggest obstacles facing our challenge was time. Our group was composed of six researchers/designers and two days to gather as much data as possible without much pre-planning. As a group of six, we divided into groups of two so that we had three teams spread out each looking to address the various stakeholders for the challenge.
We divided groups to tackle different areas. One group ran a co-creation session with the members of IdeaSquare. The purpose here is to get the staff members to design and visualize solutions to the challenge.
By structuring the co-creation session by framing the problem and developing an ideal solution, members reveal insights that allowed us to have a deeper understanding of the issue at hand.
The second and third group reached out to gather insights from the scientific community. Since there was not much pre-planning, we relied on conducting guerrilla interviews. Because we were short on time, we decided that the best place to find as many physicists as possible would be at lunchtime at CERN’s cafeteria. By going up to people and asking them questions without taking too much of their time.
We balanced guerrilla interviews (not gorilla) by scheduling individual meetings with scientists and industry leaders at IdeaSquare. My role here was to interview the magazine editor of CERN’s leading publication and to interview the head of the Knowledge Transfer department at CERN.
What We Discovered
As our groups gathered, we began to notice some patterns. One of the reasons scientists were not involved in IdeaSquare was simply that many of them were unaware of its existence. CERN has a body of 17,000 members, 15,000 of which are volunteers and students who are temporary. Because of its ‘revolving door’ status, it is difficult to maintain a presence through ‘word of mouth’.
Another issue affecting CERN is its location. While IdeaSquare is within CERN, it is out of reach from where the main facilities. Our proposals concerning the challenge sought to address these two significant areas.
In my collaboration with Wendy Pazmiño, we decided to focus on two proposals. The aim of each solution sought to maximize the visibility of the facility.
Our first solution addressed the community outside of CERN. This involved developing a digital publication as a way to reach out to for members outside of CERN’s scientific community and who are interested in participating in IdeaSquare. The scientists at IdeaSquare run two significant events–Challenge Based Innovation (CBI) and Port Hackathons–but there is no medium for publishing the results.
The media publication would provide channels of engagement through already established platforms (e.g. Medium) and serve to gauge interest for anyone. Currently, IdeaSquare network spans a handful of universities, and the publication would provide better exposure and greater presence.
The second proposal addressed the scientific community at CERN. One of the distinguishing features at IdeaSquare’s facility is a large London bus. We saw this as an opportunity that needed to be taken advantage of. For instance, by driving the red London bus would draw attention. Members of IdeaSquare could personally reach out to scientists by driving around the CERN campus and offering passerby’s coffee in exchange for an idea.
This would serve two purposes. One, the red London bus would help build IdeaSquare’s identity and awareness of their mission. The second, and most importantly, it would create direct engagement and serve as an invitation for scientists to participate in the facility.
Final Thoughts
This challenging workshop spanned a total of three days. By splitting our team of six into groups of two, we were able to cover all the research in two days. In the final day, we prepared a small presentation where we highlighted our findings to Dr Nordberg and his team.
One of the great things about this challenge was discovering many exciting possibilities and areas of opportunity that are often overlooked. It was an honor to be invited to work on solutions at CERN, and the experience opened my eyes to the world of physics and the openness and warm sincerity of the members at CERN. While intense, peering into this world and participating in it made this project a lot of fun.
