Ideas benefit from conversation and critique. Engagement, exploration, and questioning can make ideas more robust and useful, able to drive positive change in the world. The concept of The Common Room is to facilitate this process of feedback and improvement through a virtual seminar-style roundtable where policy-relevant proposals are presented, debated, and revised in real time.
The Common Room convenes leading thinkers, policymakers, academics, and innovation stakeholders to discuss one specific, actionable proposal or challenge to enhance Canada’s innovation policies. The core idea may address any aspect of innovation, e.g.: research, investment, talent, resource flows, relevant societal issues, or paths to prosperity and well-being, and its impact may extend to any part of society, the economy, or politics.
But the Common Room is not just a public lecture or a Ted Talk-style presentation. Once a proposal or challenge has been presented, it is submitted to the scrutiny of a panel of respondents who probe and even challenge the idea. After the speaker responds in real time, invited participants break off into discussion groups to explore strengths and weaknesses, risks and opportunities, adaptation for their context, and potential implications and synergies. The results of these discussions, which take place under the Chatham House Rule, will be collected, edited, and published biannually in CCSIP’s policy ideas publication, The Exchange: Policy Proposals for Inclusive Prosperity.
Request an invitation: [email protected]
