About IMI Lab

Music is a global phenomenon. It makes live better on a personal level and has a huge impact on society. The richness of its influence is often overlooked. Because music produces different meaning for everyone, its benefits are unintentionally ignored. For some reason, society lacks the capacity to deliberately and intentionally utilize its powers and impact. Instead, we reduce music to the entertainment value and the economic aspects of music production and consumption. Music is much more: it empowers people to deal with their situation within the structure of society.

We believe that music is more than a commodity. Music has the power to address global issues by connecting to people on a personal level. The music industry can play a vital role in this by being a responsible actor in the music ecosystem.

We want to help transform the music industry by using the power of music on its own production environment. We believe that the music industry can be inclusive, sustainable, and an open, engaging environment for everybody.

We build and foster a diverse community of learners (young professionals, coaches, experts, music industry professionals, and researchers) and together explore the global issues the international music industry is facing.

We turn these explorations into challenges that we take on together by using a design approach in order to build a healthier and more sustainable music ecosystem.

We embrace innovation. For us, innovation is not only about trying out new things but also improving upon, testing, developing and implementing these ideas. And, in the process, to make mistakes and learn from them.

We take the approach of design thinking, using the way designers think to explore and come up with possible solutions to problems. Using design methods and tools helps in getting a better understanding of the context of those problems so we can come to better solutions.

We do this within the setting of a living lab, a hybrid space where education, the professional field and academic research coincides. Where junior professionals, coaches, researchers, professional partners and other stakeholders collaborate and co-create.

We do this in the context of the international music industry. Many people equate the music industry with the business of selling recorded music, but the international music industry is actually much bigger than that. In our definition it entails every entity, large and small, that focuses on any form of economic activity where music is involved. We focus on new business models and entrepreneurship and get inspired by new economical approaches like the doughnut economy. For us, the music industry is a part of a wider music ecosystem and of society as a whole.

We use the Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs) as our starting point. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 SDGs, which are an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.

In our lab, we focus on the following LAB GOALS: