Accredited Innovation Lab (AInL)®

Optimize design, operation, and capabilities of your organization's business and strategies.
Affirm commitment to leadership and demonstrate ongoing market impact focus.
Recognize your organization through a globally-recognized standard acknowledgment.

Overview

Accreditation of an Innovation Lab by GInI assures all affected stakeholders that this lab has been properly assessed, and that its design and operation therefore conform to GInI’s strict accreditation standards. No other organization prescribes this same level of accreditation standard for Innovation Labs as does GInI. Accreditation by GInI is therefore the global standard of accreditation for Innovation Labs.

Given growing economic pressures and the world’s accelerating pace of change, there is now a clear trend within businesses to establish Innovation Labs – facilities focused explicitly on helping businesses create new waves of growth and leadership in their markets. These labs must be fully capable of leading the charge forward into the unknown, in addition to establishing and developing whatever is “next” for the business.

Yet how can businesses know that their Innovation Labs have the right capabilities for doing this? How can they have the assurance they need that their Innovation Labs will in fact help lead them into the future in the best possible ways? And how do they know that they have captured world-class practices in the design and operation of these labs? For these reasons a credible and reliable accreditation standard is needed.

The GInI Innovation Lab Accreditation is such a credible and reliable accreditation standard –a means by which businesses can develop the confidence they need in the design, operation, and capabilities of their Innovation Labs. The GInI Innovation Lab Accreditation stands alone as the sole such standard in the world to set the benchmark against what all world-class Innovation Labs must aspire.

The Innovation Labs accredited by GInI will bear GInI’s Accredited Innovation Lab badge. This distinction provides significant value to both the lab’s operators and the lab’s governing business.

GInI remains fully committed to pursuing excellence and continuous improvement in all activities relating to the GInI Accreditation Center and the GInI Accreditation Program. The Innovation Lab Accreditation Guidebook provided on this page sets forth the policies, procedures, and standards used to assess the design and operation of individual Innovation Labs, and to thereafter accredit them to GInI’s standards.

Businesses wishing to secure GInI Innovation Lab Accreditation must work through a GInI Authorized Training & Assessment Provider (ATAP)® and two GInI Authorized Innovation Assessors (AInAs)® of their choice to complete the Innovation Lab Assessment process and thereafter submit to GInI the Innovation Lab Assessment Report (InLAR). GInI Innovation Lab Accreditations are valid for two years and must be renewed via re-assessment every two years.

What Organizations Should Apply?

Any organization operating a dedicated Innovation Lab or equivalent type of lab, including Learning Labs, Research & Development Labs, Design & Collaboration Labs, and more.

Benefits

Confidence that the design, operation, and capabilities of the organization’s Innovation Lab is optimized for its business and its unique strategies. Affirmation of the organization’s ongoing commitment to market leadership and business impact. Peer recognition for achievement to a globally-recognized benchmark standard.

Obtaining

Compliance Demonstration

To obtain GInI Accreditation, an Innovation Lab must be able to demonstrate full compliance to GInI’s Innovation Lab accreditation requirements.

Compliance to these requirements is established through an independent third-party assessment carried out by GInI’s Authorized Innovation Assessors (AInAs) working under the direction of a GInI Authorized Training & Assessment Provider (ATAP).

This assessment is conducted live on site at the Innovation Lab using GInI’s Innovation Lab Accreditation Assessment Tool (InLAAT) , after which the Assessors submit a summary report (the Innovation Lab Accreditation Assessment Report, or InLAAR) to GInI for final determination of accreditation status.

The Assessment Process

Organizations wishing to secure accreditation of their Innovation Lab would take the following steps to have the on-site assessment conducted.

They will first identify and retain a GInI Authorized Training & Assessment Provider (ATAP) of their choosing to coordinate and oversee the overall assessment process.
This ATAP will then retain two independent GInI Authorized Innovation Assessors (AInAs) to conduct the on-site assessment of the Lab.
Upon the scheduled date, these two GInI AInAs® will visit the Innovation Lab and conduct a live on-site walking assessment of the following items:
- the Innovation Lab itself.
- the Innovation Group operating and managing the Lab.
- certain aspects of the associated business.

In the process of working through the assessment questions the Assessors will tour throughout the lab, in some cases multiple times, and will expect to engage with front-line workers so as to ensure good transparency and objectivity in the assessment.

The Innovation Lab Assessment is done using GInI’s Innovation Lab Accreditation Assessment Tool (InLAAT), which is comprised of 70 questions grouped into the following four core areas:

Foundation & Strategy
Hard Lab – physical infrastructure
Soft Lab – innovation group
Lab Management

These four areas examine a number of critical areas for the Lab, including the following:

The culture and history of innovation in the business.
The business’ innovation strategy and portfolio.
The business’ metrics for innovation success.
The lab’s compliance to applicable safety and building codes.
General application and use of the lab within and across the business.
Design facilities / external design resources.
Research facilities for user and design research.
Prototyping facilities / external prototyping resources.
Testing and experimentation facilities / external testing resources.
Advanced design elements of the lab.
Environmental considerations of the lab.
The make-up and structure of the business’ core innovation group.
Ownership, oversight, and management of the innovation lab.
The operating budget for the lab.
The training program for the lab’s use and management.

All of the assessment questions must be answered in the affirmative in order for the Lab to qualify for accreditation. However 24 of these questions allow for a “not applicable” answer, in which case determination of whether or not an area is not applicable rests solely with the two Assessors, not with the business. The business should, however, explain why they believe a certain area is not applicable wherever they so believe.

Once the two Assessors have completed this assessment process, they will then compile a standardized final report – the GInI Innovation Lab Accreditation Assessment Report (InLAAR)– and submit to GInI for review.
GInI will then review the Assessors’ findings, as documented in the InLAAR, and based on these findings will make its final determination of whether or not the Innovation Lab satisfies all of its requirements for accreditation.
GInI will subsequently notify the applying organization and their ATAP of their determination (pass or fail) and provide both parties with a copy of the Assessment Report.