WICKED PROBLEMS DEMAND WICKED SOLUTIONS

Accelerating desirable futures

Humanity is facing complex problems
Be part of the solution with Wicked Acceleration Labs

Our mission

We develop techniques to accelerate the resolution of wicked problems.
Our toolkits (tools, methods and systems) aim to orchestrate complex multi-stakeholder ecosystems to help established firms, governments, universities and new ventures to better address today's urgent systemic challenges in areas like climate and economic renewal.

Imperial College Business School, in partnership with the Royal College of Art and leading global industry players, has established Wicked Acceleration Labs.

We envision desirable futures through collective imagination.
We orchestrate resources, capabilities and ecosystems.
We accelerate moonshots and deep tech to address grand challenges.

How we can help you

Our world has complex and urgent challenges. The global response to these wicked problems has demonstrated that governments can’t do this alone. It demands a grand coalition that encompasses industry, academia, government and civil society.
Solving these problems in time, demands, agile, adaptive, and collaborative actions involving multiple stakeholders that span international borders, industries and governments, and generate systemic solutions to systemic problems. It demands high velocity innovation that is inclusive and benefits everyone.

We can support different needs for different people:
Innovation Managers
Corporate strategy departments and innovation managers looking for radical and disruptive solutions - Wicked Lab can help you with the design and orchestration of your moonshots programmes.
R&D Managers
If you are an R&D Manager, we can help you de-risk your future technology development through deep tech speculative design, and enhance your capacity to attract investment and grants.
Non-Profits & NGO’s
As a not for profit organisation, or social enterprise working on the UN’s SDG.s, Wicked Labs can help equip you to play the ecosystem game with established firms, ventures and governments.
New Ventures
As a New Venture looking to accelerate your development and scale your business in a B2B or B2C context, WIcked Labs can help you with the do’s and don'ts of corporate venture capital and guide you through the pros and cons of industry accelerators.
Policy Makers
If you are a policy maker trying to address a grand challenge, we can support you with optimised frameworks, tools and methodologies to deal with ecosystem complexity and open innovation models.
University Centers
As a university' lab, Center, Technology License Office (TLO), or Knowledge Exchange (KE) Leader eager to speed up commercialisation of your research, we can help with our distinctive wicked acceleration frameworks and provide a toolkit for deep tech acceleration and speculative design.

What we offer

We’re bringing together some of the best minds, institutions and global partners across industry and academia to set about tackling wicked problems.
We offer range of approaches and activities to accelerate desirable futures:
Ecosystem Strategy
Sprint
Develop your action plan to tackle complex ecosystem challenges
5 days (flexible)
An Ecosystem Strategy Sprint aligns divergent stakeholders around a common wicked problem or challenge, whilst defining your collective ideal future state, detailing exactly how programs, initiatives and interventions will get there.
Solve divergent perspectives,  objectives & motivations

Aligned stakeholders on the future to-be states

Full stakeholder strategic commitment
More info
Deep-Tech Acceleration
Sprint
Design a direction and plan a route to accelerate your technologies
5 days (flexible)
A Deep-tech Acceleration sprint combines design thinking with futures thinking and agile development to identify the fastest route to a desired future for your technology.
Develop concepts of future applications of your technologies

Plan how to experiment to de-risk strategies

Promote innovation culture through cross discipline and cross technology thinking
More info
Corporate Moonshot Deployment
Create and sustain a roadmap to allocate resources for distant yet critical strategic bets
5 days (flexible)
Moonshot Acceleration helps you to rapidly in/validate distant and uncertain bets stemming out of your Horizon 3. We have developed new toolkits and frameworks to deal with scenarios when there are no customers and the uncertainty is high.
Develop a Moonshot Strategy-Deploy a Beyond Lean Approach

Harvest the Collective Imagination to nurture and de-risk your Moonshot Strategy

Craft a Portfolio Strategy to balance the risk involved in several bets
More info
Intrapreneurial Journey Development
Strategise, Launch and Nurture your Intrapreneurial Journey
1 week Sprint
1 year Programme
Our Intrapreneurial Journey helps to unlock the internal entrepreneurial spirit of your employees, colleagues, suppliers and partners, through a process that embeds an end-to-end, ‘ideation to scaling’ structure within your organisation to ensure sustained action.
Assessment of your current corporate venturing and intrapreneurial activities

Development of an end-to-end process from ideation up to scaling

Design of your Organisational Structure and Incentives to sustain  the Intrapreneurial Journey
More info

Challenges we work on

We’re looking for further partners across all industries, actively focussed on enabling and realising the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Help contribute to and benefit from Wicked Acceleration Lab’s ecosystem, research and practical tools and methods to address grand challenges such as:

Upcoming events

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Become a full consortium partner

You can become a full consortium partner and work with Wicked Acceleration Labs and its network partners in a number of ways - from access to tools and methodologies, training, participating in innovation and networking events to working in partnership with other members to build solutions to wicked problems together.
We are fortunate enough to have a growing number of exceptional partners contributing to solving wicked challenges.

Simply get in touch and start a discussion!

If you have a wicked problem to solve, a shift to circular economy, a complex ecosystem to navigate, a sustainability challenge or simply wish to discuss how you can get involved as a potential collaboration partner, then get in touch so we can explore next possible steps.

Who we are

Our team of experts bringing their wealth of skills and expertise from a wide range of background.
Executive Education and Knowledge Exchange Lead at Royal College of Art

Nick de Leon

Executive Education and Knowledge Exchange Lead
royal college of art

Erkko Autio

Chair in Technology Transfer and Entrepreneurship
Imperial college london
Nicolas Rebolledo Service Design

Nicolas Rebolledo

Design for Policy Platform Leader
royal college of art

Cristobal Garcia Herrera

Research associate & Corporate Acceleration Lead
imperial college business school

Mike Pinder

Honorary Practice Fellow and Lecturer
imperial college business school

Christopher L Tucci

Professor of Digital Strategy and Innovation
imperial college business school
John Makepeace Service Design research associate

John Makepeace

Service Design Research associate
royal college of art
Mattia Gobbo Service Designer

Mattia Gobbo

Service Design Research associate
royal college of art

Institutions involved

Imperial College Business School, in partnership with the Royal College of Art and leading industry players, has established Wicked Labs.
Contact us