The Innovation Lab for the Performing Arts is designed and managed by EmcArts, with the support of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The Lab is a 12‑month program that helps performing arts organizations incubate and test innovative strategies to address major adaptive challenges.
Applications are invited from more than one organization to explore a partnership, collaborative venture, or merger is also welcomed. Up to three organizations will be chosen to participate in Round 7. This program strongly encourages applicants to discuss draft proposals with EmcArts in advance of their final submission.
The RFP for Round 8 of the Performing Arts Lab will be announced in the fall of 2012. Recognizing that service organizations and other development agencies in the performing arts have specific needs, EmcArts is undertaking research to determine how best to develop a Lab program that supports innovation and adaptive change for those entities. Rather than including service organizations in Rounds 7 and 8 of the existing Lab, this expect to develop a first Lab cohort especially designed for service organizations, to begin participation in early 2013.
The Innovation Lab was established in response to demands from the performing arts field for deeper support for innovation over extended periods of time. Emcarts recognize that there is already widespread experimentation in the field. Supporting innovation is as vital to the health of performing arts organizations now, during a time of severe economic stress, as it is in more expansive times. Organizations able to respond innovatively to restructure will be among those most capable of seizing future opportunities as the economy improves. The Innovation Lab provides organizations (selected on a competitive basis) with space, time and resources to explore and accelerate the design and testing of new organizational change strategies for which they are both ready and committed, with the purpose of addressing specific adaptive .
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