Open labs: practices and changes in France

An increasing number of companies, public institutions (such as universities, schools, hospitals, museums, and so on), associations and local authorities are integrating open labs in response to innovation practices which are not judged to be sufficiently reactive or trend-setting. The result is a profusion of fablabs‚ living labs‚ ideas labs, hackerspaces, makerspaces and other TechShops. These think-tanks are created on the fringes of the organisations in question and are allowed to side-step the rules and give free rein to inventiveness in order to mark out resolutely innovative development paths. They are also intended to boost new methods of creativity among the staff of the company which finances them. How do the lack of rules and enthusiasm for inventiveness manage to coexist? Is the atypical approach of open labs likely to change the practices for managing innovation in conventional organisations?