You might not have heard of The Guelph Lab, but you’ve definitely seen the fruits of its research. From food insecurity to public washroom access downtown, The Guelph Lab highlights s unique partnership between the City of Guelph and the University of Guelph by taking academic research power and applying it to problems facing our municipality. This week, we’re going to take a peek under the hood to learn how they do it...

The Guelph Lab, which is now marking 10 years of existence, is a “catalyst for research, collaboration and experimentation. It brings together the University, City and community partners to create innovative solutions for shared challenges across Guelph.” They decide what projects they want to pursue and select from a roster of community partners and experts for each specific assignment. It’s like Mission: Impossible but for municipal policy nerds.

The work of The Guelph Lab has been multifaceted; they looked at what areas of the city are more marginalized in terms of road safety, and they've also guided the refresh of Guelph’s advisory committees of council. All these projects took months or years of research to complete, but how does The Guelph Lab work? How do they choose the projects they pursue? Is its work academic, or is it meant to come up with actionable suggestions that the municipality will follow?

To answer these, and other questions, we're joined by Dr. Elizabeth Jackson, Director of the Community Engaged Scholarship Institute at the University of Guelph, and Jodie Sales, GM of Strategy, Innovation and Intergovernmental Relations at the City of Guelph. The two of them will also discuss the kinds of projects that they won’t take on, the oversight of The Guelph Lab, working with other governments and groups outside the city, and what they’re working on next. 

So let's see what can be cooked up in The Guelph Labs on this week's Guelph Politicast!

You can learn more about The Guelph Lab at their website. A report marking 10 years of The Guelph Lab will be shared on the City of Guelph’s website as an information report to council, which are published every Friday. Just go to the council calendar page on the City’s website and click the link when it’s available.

The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, TuneIn and Spotify .

Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.