[Adelaide, South Australia]: Australian Social enterprise Wicked Lab, today announced their involvement as a delivery partner in the UK Community Renewal Fund (CRF) North Somerset Community Hubs project. Wicked Lab will build the capacity of a core team in Weston-super-Mare to take a complexity approach to ecosystem transition and to use the Tool for Systemic Change to visualise and capture research findings.
The North Somerset Community Hubs project will create a network of community hubs across North Somerset. There are eight delivery partners who are working with North Somerset Council, and Wicked Lab is partnering with Weston Community Hubs, located in Weston-super-Mare.
Funded through the UK’s Community Renewal Fund, the £700K project aims to create a strong, inclusive, connected, collaborative and easily navigable Community Hub Network where communities thrive.
Alison Bancroft, Project Lead for Weston Community Hubs said ‘the North Somerset community recognises the opportunity to innovate in response to the pandemic. There is an urgent need to deliver innovation in every aspect of the existing system, and an increasing desire for integrated approaches that deliver more equitable and sustainable economic activity’
Alison also explained, ‘We’ve partnered with Wicked Lab because their approach is an internationally recognised method of addressing phase transition in complex systems. We are using the Wicked Lab’s Tool for Systemic Change to visualise our local solution ecosystem, record research findings and make recommendations for targeted action to strengthen our ecosystem’
Sarah Jackson, Policy and Partnerships Officer, North Somerset Council said, ‘the council is delighted to have helped secure government funding to enable the community hubs project to be piloted by our community partners. We are excited to be also working with Wicked Lab to support the development of an innovative system wide approach in North Somerset’.
Emily Humphreys, CEO of Wicked Lab says the team is extremely proud to be partnering on this community-led system change initiative. ‘This is an incredible example of citizen-led systems change, and I want to congratulate Alison Bancroft on her effect in bringing this ambitious systems change project to life. She has brought together diverse stakeholders across the region, and we look forward to building the capacity of a core team to support their ecosystem to transition and to use the Tool for Systemic Change to visualize and capture insights to strengthen their community system’.