Innovation in every humanitarian setting.

The Response Innovation Lab (RIL) was founded by humanitarian professionals from some of the world’s leading NGOs who experienced first-hand how difficult it is for innovative solutions to be piloted, tested and scaled in emergency contexts, where they are most needed.  RIL aims to create collaborative spaces and networks inside major humanitarian responses to help connect humanitarian actors with non-traditional actors (such as the private sector, academia, and the innovation sector) to facilitate understanding shared challenges and identify potential breakthrough solutions that can better support addressing the needs of crisis affected communities. 

With our founding members - World Vision, Save the Children, Oxfam, the George Washington University and Civic - the Response Innovation Lab is a global initiative that generates impact by transforming how challenges are solved in responses.

RIL does not try to replace existing innovation structures (incubators, accelerators, hubs) but rather ensures that existing structures and networks are connected to one another and supported to deliver innovative solutions that address actual challenges standing in way of delivering aid effectively and efficiently to the most vulnerable people in the communities where it operates. 

RIL’s mission is to create a circle of support that increases the impact of humanitarian responders at the level of the response, and within communities, camps, households, and individuals by removing barriers to the delivery of aid. 

Our labs serve all organizations in a humanitarian crisis - governments, NGOs, entrepreneurs, community based organizations (CBO’s), academics - that support addressing the needs of the most vulnerable people in a community through problem and solution analysis, localized-adaptation support to sound innovation models, and investment to pilot, scale and ultimately bring to market.  By doing so, RIL helps develop an effective, dynamic ecosystem that maximizes the innovation potential within each response and achieves better outcomes for crisis affected communities.