To create impact, well-designed and executed implementation is a must.

Implementation refers to strategies, scaffolds, processes, resources, and motivations to facilitate the engagement between interventions and intended stakeholders. Similar concepts can be found in technology integration | adoption, change management, health care, public policy, organizational learning areas of practice and research. Basically “implementation” deals with how an intervention can be introduced to the intended audience/stakeholders with designed and planned scaffolds, and furthermore, leading to sustainable change of behaviors and outcomes. While a large body of literature has associated innovation with implementation, the scope of implementation research and practice should be broader than innovation implementation. There are many cases where implementations are critical for the purpose of maintaining current routines, conditions, and situations of the organization.

Interdisciplinary Implementation Laboratory (IIL) allows us to identify underlying root causes to problems that are elementary but largely ignored. Not that those basic needs are not important, but very often we are drawn to problems that are predetermined, apparent and already showing symptoms. For instance, in order to effectively implement a new medical treatment, alignment among local clinics, regional hospitals, and national research centers are critical. In many cases abundant resources have been invested into establishing such alignment. But why have individual patients not adopted this new treatment? There are many factors to inhibit the comprehensive implementation of the new treatment for individuals. Issues such as the lack of accessible transportation, while basic, could play an important role in supporting the implementation of the new treatment.

Implementation has been an ongoing challenge for individuals and organizations to fully implement various interventions into stakeholders’ thinking and behaviors with intended outcomes. This misalignment leads to inefficient deployment of resources, repeated actions, damaged social relationships, and negative organizational memories. To address these issues, the Interdisciplinary Implementation Laboratory aims to achieve following objectives:

• To elevate the role of implementation in all design processes for solving problems at various scales
• To understand what implementation means across various social science contexts
• To articulate best practices in implementation for various stakeholders
• To increase awareness on effective and sustainable implementation approaches for various stakeholders
• To entice and guide research on implementation across disciplines and contexts