The Jerusalem Lab is a new impact lab, founded in collaboration with the Municipality of Jerusalem, as part of the University's Jerusalem Centre for Urban Innovation.
The lab was established in January 2023 and its purpose is to act as a catalyst of urban innovation, by addressing the City’s main challenges through rigorous data collection & analysis, onsite tests, and ongoing validation of the municipality’s policies. It is based on three operating principles:
- Acting as Jerusalem’s prime urban innovation partner based on answering annual “mayor’s challenges” via student and faculty-led multi-stakeholder challenge teams.
- Assisting the Capital’s tech & strategy teams, through analyzing local trends and applying evidence-based policy tools.
- Promoting joint urban-tech trial & and validation within the city.
This joint venture creates a synergy between the academic way, which promotes rigourus thinking based on research and data analysis - and the people managing a complex city, the crowdest in Israel. Using the Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) approach, we plan to produce long-term impact processes, within the context of a policy or an urban phenomena we wish to change or support.