About Lindsay

I've spent much of my adult life positively obsessed with this question: how and why do public institutions transform, and how might the transformational characters working within and alongside them midwife these processes? And not any kind of transformation, but rather transformation toward socio-economic and ecological health, wellbeing, and liberation for current and future generations of humans and our more-than-human relations.

Transformation, as I understand it, is a messy, unruly, and shapeshifting thing. It doesn't move in straight lines and has no clear end point. It certainly looks and feels different depending on one's position, perspective, and experience. Transformation is contested, contextual, and always evolving, shaped by who is in the room, who isn't, what histories are carried in, and what futures are being imagined. I think one of the deepest problems with how public institutions approach change and innovation is that they remain quite trapped within dominant ways of thinking, knowing, being, and doing. I try to hold an expansive and multitudinous view of so many ways that transformation can - and already is - happening, rooted in many different knowledge systems.

I come to this question first as a practitioner. For over a decade I worked in municipal government in Vancouver, where I founded and managed the City of Vancouver's Solutions Lab, one of the first public sector innovation labs in Canada. Prior to that, I was the lead planner responsible for the collaborative making of the award-winning Greenest City Action Plan for Vancouver, after which I worked on implementation initiatives related to local food systems, access to nature, rewilding and stewardship, and urban biodiversity. Before joining the City, I co-founded a sustainability consulting cooperative that continues to do incredibly important climate change work, most often with local governments. Through all of these experiences, I know what it feels like to try to transform the public sector, working alongside the dedicated, creative, often invisible people doing this work despite so many difficulties.

I also come to this question as an applied and action researcher. As I began my work with Solutions Lab, I returned to school to complete a mid-career PhD exploring the transformative potential of international public sector innovation labs. I currently work as an independent scholar, an educator, and a Research Associate in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia. One of my favourite things in my scholarly practice is to work with practitioners who are doing the vital, transformational work so that public institutions are more capable of meeting the complexity and urgency that these times demand.

I continue to be curious about all of the ways that people and the natural world are theorizing and enacting transformation, and know that this positive obsession will continue to fuel me for many years to come. In my most recent research, teaching, and writing I am focused on learning amongst feminist, queer, Indigenous, Black, Earth-centered, disabled, and somatic knowledge holders. These whole-bodied traditions have deepened my thinking and feeling about transformation in countless ways as they have always understood its complexity, and the need to hospice and compost all that is not in service of growing aliveness in order to nourish what is to come.

My book Transforming the Public Sector From Within is my current attempt to bring together all of these ideas, stories, and experiences in one place. It is forthcoming from University of Toronto Press in 2027, and information about pre-ordering will be available here when ready. If you would like to connect about potential speaking, workshop facilitation, consulting, or other collaboration opportunities please reach out: transforming.ps.from.within@gmail.com.

I am an uninvited guest and settler living on the swiya of the shíshálh Nation, also known as the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Canada.

Publications

Cole, L. & Raphael, L. (2025). Dancing and Tending in the Spaces in Between - Attempts in transformative public innovation. Journal of Awareness Based Systems Change. https://doi.org/10.47061/jasc.v5i2.10299 (open access)

Cole, L. (2025). Chapitre II: L’évaluation pour renforcer le design. Utiliser l’évaluation évolutive au Solutions Lab de la Ville de Vancouver (p. 61-67). In: Évaluation et design des politiques publiques: Coopérer et hybrider pour transformer l’action publique. Delahais, T., Besrest, V., & Jegou, F. (Eds.). Cahier de la Société Française de l’Évaluation 12. France. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15773629 (open access)

Cole, L. & Kozak. L. (2024). Sharing Power in Urban Climate Justice Work: Experiences in transformative learning from Vancouver, Canada. Nature npj Climate Action 3(118). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-024-00204-3 (open access)

Kozak, L., Raphael, L., Cole, L., Bashir, K & Goldet, E.L. (2024). Sharing Power: Codifications and collective learnings from Vancouver’s Climate Justice Field School. Policy and project report, link here (open access)

Fettes, M., Cole, L., & Blenkinsop, S. (2024). Combining Practices: Design and education coming together for eco-social transformation. Journal of Environmental Education, 55(2), 125–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2023.2259827

Cole, L. & Low, M. (2024). Transforming Planning Processes at the Intersections of Climate, Equity, and Decolonization. Plan Canada Magazine. Canadian Institute of Planners.

Cole, L., & Low, M. (2023). Transforming planning and policy making processes at the intersections of climate, equity, and decolonization challenges. Nature npj Urban Sustainability 3(46). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-023-00126-9 (open access)

Cole, L. & Hagen, P. (2023). Scaling deep through transformative learning in public sector innovation labs - experiences from Vancouver and Auckland. Public Management Review, DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2023.2254776 (open access)

Cole, L. (2022). Assembling a Cabinet of Curiousities: Using Participatory Action Research and Constructivist Grounded Theory to Generate Stronger Theorization of Public Sector Innovation Labs. Journal of Participatory Research Methods, 3(2). https://doi.org/10.35844/001c.36761 (open access)

Cole, L. (2022) A framework to conceptualize innovation purpose in public sector innovation labs. Policy Design and Practice, 5:2, 164-182, DOI: 10.1080/25741292.2021.2007619 (open access)

Cole, L. & Raphael, L. (2022). Tending to what we want to grow: Continuing on the journey of Vancouver’s Solutions Lab. Report, link here (open access)

Cole, L. (2021). Exploring the Transformative Potential of Public Sector Innovation Labs: A Cabinet of Curiousities. University of British Columbia, Ph.D. Dissertation. Available here (open access)

Cole, L. (2018). Navigating Complexity - The Story of the City of Vancouver’s Solutions Lab. City of Vancouver. Report, link here (open access)