“The Organizational Laboratory – A Concept for Supporting the Transformation of University Organizations”[Le laboratoire organisationnel – un concept au service de la transformation de l’organisation universitaire]

The NCU @ASPIRE project at Université Savoie Mont Blanc introduced an organizational laboratory designed to support pedagogical and organizational transformation. Positioned between ideation, prototyping and institutional deployment, the laboratory mobilizes students, administrative and teaching staff, domain experts and governance in a co-construction process grounded in user-centered design, living lab methodologies and action research. Based on nineteen experimental sessions and three surveys involving participating students, staff engaged in prototyping activities and elected representatives involved in the project, the results show that the laboratory supports the emergence of a systemic approach to transformation through the reinforcement of mutual understanding among actors, cross-functional collaboration and user involvement in design processes. The laboratory also promotes agile professional practices based on experimentation and continuous improvement, while enabling evidence-informed decision-making and reinforcing acceptance and trust in ongoing changes. These findings suggest that the organizational laboratory is a relevant lever for capability-enhancing organizational transformation. Nevertheless, extending the experiment and implementing the approach in other institutions would be the next step towards consolidating and validating these initial results.