Towards a minimal definition of policy innovation labs

Policy innovation labs (PILs) have proliferated globally as institutional arrangements through which governments experiment with new approaches to addressing complex public problems. Despite their growing prominence in policy systems, the concept of the Policy Innovation Lab remains poorly specified, making it difficult to distinguish PILs from behavioral insights teams, think tanks, service design units, and other innovation-oriented entities. This definitional ambiguity undermines empirical comparability, complicates evaluation, and weakens theory building in the study of policy innovation. Drawing on Giovanni Sartori’s guidelines for concept formation, this article addresses this gap by systematically analyzing how PILs are defined in the scholarly literature. The study reviews 16 highly cited academic definitions published between 2010 and mid-2025 and codes each definition across seven core dimensions. The analysis reveals strong convergence around innovation orientation, design-based and experimental approaches, and problem-focused mandates, alongside greater variation in the treatment of user-centeredness, stakeholder engagement, and boundary-spanning functions. Building on these findings, the article proposes a minimal yet analytically robust definition of PILs as innovation-oriented entities that employ design-based, experimental, and/or other innovative methods to develop creative responses to complex public problems, placing users and stakeholders at the center of the policy process. The article justifies each component of this definition and demonstrates how it helps distinguish PILs from adjacent organizational forms. By offering a clear definitional baseline, the article enhances conceptual clarity, supports systematic case selection and comparison, and provides a foundation for cumulative, theory-driven research on PILs.