Learning and Innovation Network (LINK) is a 36-month project (September 2022 – August 2025) funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union and led by the Research and Development Centre (R&D Centre) in Linköping, Sweden.

LINK brings together seven partner organisations from seven European countries and was motivated by the urgent need, identified in all the partner countries, for a new approach capable of fostering collaboration and overcoming professional and managerial barriers to more holistic and personalised service delivery.

LINK aims to develop and test a new ‘Learning and Innovation Lab’ model and approach to delivering more integrated and person-centred health and social care services to different target groups, including older people, families with young children facing multiple challenges, and young people with mental health conditions.

A learning and innovation lab can be defined as a structure that invites and creates conditions for formal and informal actors (organisations, individuals, communities) to collaboratively develop, evaluate, and spread new methods, tools, and ways of working—often by addressing structural and complex challenges in current practice. The LINK labs, in particular, address the need for new competencies of frontline professionals and managers to address growing pressures and increased demand for social services.

To assist in setting up a lab, the LINK partnership has created a learning programme for anybody who wants to learn more about how to work with social innovations: it is available on the LINK platform. On the platform, you can also find detailed information about the different learning and innovation labs set up by the countries participating in the LINK project, including the challenges they each encountered and the lessons learnt whilst setting up a lab. The platform also allows you to ask questions in a forum dedicated to fostering exchange on how to set up a lab and work with social innovations.

You can view the project poster here.