An 'Arrivederci!' from Our Inaugural Academic Director

Dear GO Lab friends,

As some of you know, I have decided to step away from the GO Lab and from academia – at least for a while. I have been reflecting on my journey, and I thought of sharing some very personal takeaways, if I can be indulged.

Rewind to the early days

I still remember the day I asked for a meeting with our Dean Ngaire Woods in 2016 to tell her I was putting my name forward to be the Inaugural Director of the GO Lab. It is one of those memories that stays with you in every detail, down to the outfit you were wearing. And I remember the burning conviction that, although I was an early career researcher, I was ready for that challenge.

In my personal statement I wrote “My urgent priority would be to establish the GO Lab as a trusted, independent base of usable knowledge for public sector commissioners, social entrepreneurs and the private sector. The production of this knowledge base should be led by independent staff of the GO Lab, but co-designed with the intended users to ensure their burning questions will be addressed. To produce this helpful knowledge, the GO Lab needs to be an open hub for the private and the public sectors to engage in the design of innovative ways to commission services, to learn from past successes and failures. I would hope to create an environment in which practitioners constantly challenge the GO Lab staff to tackle knowledge gaps. The hub will also develop and strengthen a live-network of civil servants, social entrepreneurs and academics with an interest in OBC worldwide”.

It was humbling, exciting and scary at the same time to be entrusted by the UK Government and the Blavatnik School of Government to lead the programme.

Personal takeaways (and a hint of GO Lab secret sauce?)

Two incredible women leaders whom I am fortunate to call mentors have been fundamental in defining how we shaped the GO Lab. Ngaire Woods at the time (and today) encouraged me with her “don’t be afraid to be bold, whatever you do”. And Sabina Nuti, who established and led an amazing research Lab at the Sant’Anna School in Pisa shared her secret sauce. First, spend most of your energy in building the right team spirit, to nurture the “mojo”. Second, keep reminding everyone why the work of the Lab does matters. The rest would have followed. And that’s it. That is the only thing I really ever did.

The boldness of the GO Lab is its ambition not to be a research programme but an institution that incarnates the ethos of the Blavatnik School of Government (as I wrote in a short blog in 2017, echoing the ethos “to learn, to serve, to lead”). Even though in practice the Lab is sustained by research grants with their research questions and associated deliverables, the grants sit under a bigger, bolder vision of how academia can play a unique role in supporting an ecosystem of multiple actors to learn from each other and improve.

The Blavatnik School of Government is the perfect home for the GO Lab due to its multi- and inter-disciplinarity. Faculty is passionate and issue driven, open to collaborate with colleagues from different disciplinary backgrounds and very different research styles. The issue that has been driving the GO Lab’s work is that it is bloody hard to provide effective, equitable, responsive and affordable public services that meet the needs of individuals, families and communities. It is the work of a whole ecosystem, not just government. Yet government has a very special role and responsibility in delivering public services. When and how can it best work with others? This is what I repeatedly went back to, to remind ourselves why our work mattered.

As for the GO Lab “mojo” I believe we are succeeding at breaking the stereotype of the academic ivory tower and showing the value of learning together as a community including researchers, policy makers in central and local governments, voluntary and civil society organisations, (social) entrepreneurs small and large and funders. At the GO Lab we believe there is so much learning that can be generated by taking the time to sit together, in a safe space and reflect. At the Lab we often say “we should not reinvent the wheel, be it round or square”, to capture our incurable curiosity and joy to learn what others have tried and what they have learned. And we learn from looking at experiences that were successful (the round wheels) which we want to do more of, and even more from those that were less successful (the somewhat square or misshapen wheels). I have always felt the desire to use Randy Newman’s “You’ve got a friend in me” to start and end our events. For its joyful music, for the commitment to true friendship, to be a fellow traveller, able to be totally open and honest as only good friends can be.

It is not easy though to operate in this way. The GO Lab is walking on a fence that, on one side, draws from and contributes to excellent academic research, and, on the other, closely engages with those involved in the design and delivery of public services, with all their resource constraints and sometimes constrictive straightjackets. It is really hard and at times feels countercultural on both sides of the fence, but brokering that learning is also the most rewarding thing we do. I have been so fortunate to work with likeminded remarkable individuals that could sustain the discomfort of sitting astride the fence. I am thinking of the excellent academic colleagues with whom I have shared this adventure more closely: Eleanor Carter, who has been the real mastermind of our research activity, with Felix van Lier and Clare FitzGerald. And to the formidable Andreea Anastasiu, Nigel Ball and Jo Blundell who over the years directed the operations as executive directors and on top of that managed to deliver an ambitious outreach strategy.

My warmest gratitude to you all, GO Labbers and friends, with whom I have shared some of this adventure. It is you that led us to where we are and I am glad I listened to my mentors and tried to be bold, issue driven and caring about our mojo. It has been an honour and privilege to learn, to serve and to lead with you.

I look forward to following your progress and next chapters under the brilliant academic leadership of Elle Carter, the energetic steering of the executive director Andreea Anastasiu and the contagious enthusiasm of the GO lab team.

A big, squeezy, Italian-style hug,

Mara