CO-LAB is a flexible sharing forum for researchers, teachers, students and practitioners of all levels of experience and seniority at Warwick; it also includes

off campus partners from industry, public authorities and the third sector. Join us, share aspects of the work you’re doing with partners and explore and develop the ways in which you co-design, collaborate and co-produce things. CO-LAB is not so much a place on campus, it is an opportunity to explore.

There’s a ‘CO’ in the name because CO-LAB is about working with people and organisations. It’s for sharing ideas, methods, experiences, and for networking and supporting. Sessions may well lead to conventional outcomes: they could give rise to concrete new relationships, projects, bids and explore ways of working. CO-LAB is not, though designed to create pressure or require preconceived ‘outcomes’. It’s also okay for there to be no other outcome than the exchange of ideas, energy and mutual support.

There’s a ‘LAB’ in the name because it creates opportunities for us to engage in some constructive labour of sorts – a chance to work together on shared projects in way that is manageable and meaningful for you. It’s okay to come along to present, pitch or circulate something. Equally, though, it’s okay to come along and simply absorb or begin something new from scratch. There is no ‘membership’. CO-LAB is for Warwick people and partners to participate in plenary or group discussion, free-form conversation, and more immersive ways of working and conversing.

There’s also a LAB in the name because it’s experimental. We want it to be creative in the broadest sense. We’re interested in having conversations and encounters, both amongst ourselves and with our external partners, which explore and facilitate new ways of doing things in interdisciplinary, cross-sector, and in on campus/ off-campus modes. We hope to see you there.