Good Services Lab
Good Services Lab
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Reimagining cities where all can flourish
The Good Services Lab, led by Kimberlyn Leary, Ph.D., MPA, is a think-and-do lab based at the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University. The lab supports current and future government and community leaders in data-driven innovation and to collaborate across boundaries to advance resident outcomes.
Stay in touch: Fill out our interest form.
Our Topics and Practice Areas
- Health and public health equity
- Public service delivery
- Environmental and climate justice
- Wealth, mobility, and opportunity gaps
- Digital divides and “AI for good” in public service delivery
- Democracy and government innovation
Team Participation in Executive Education Teaching:
Cross-Boundary Collaboration. Faculty director Kimberlyn Leary, Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative
Leading City Procurement Reform. Co-faculty directors Kimberlyn Leary and Jeffrey Liebman and the Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab, Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative
Program for New Mayors: First 100 Days. Co-faculty directors Kimberlyn Leary and Mitch Weiss, Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative
Health Equity by Design, Harvard Medical School
Our Contributions
Health Equity
- The Last Piece of the Puzzle that Makes all the Difference in the World: Team-Facing Medical Legal Partnership for Reproductive Care. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 2023.
- Addressing the Opioid Crisis: Lessons Learned from New York City. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 2020.
Leading Change
- The Consortia Century: Aligning for Impact. Oxford University Press, 2025.
- Leading with Intentionality: The 4P Framework for Strategic Leadership. HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series, 2022.
- Advancing Equitable Government 2.0. Urban Wire, 2023
- Catalyzing Leadership for Equity. The Urban Institute, 2022.
Climate Change
- How City Leaders Can Spur Youth Engagement on Climate. Bloomberg Cities, 2024.
Podcasts
- Evidence in Action: A Podcast of the Urban Institute, since 2024. Cross-sectoral changemakers address the question: What does it look like for evidence to drive change for people and communities?
- Agility at Work, since 2019. This 40-session podcast welcomes authors and other guests to share actionable advice on adaptive leadership and agile negotiation.
Equity Innovation Hub
Now a core workstream of the Good Services Lab, the Equity Innovation Hub will function as an R & D platform to identify, test, and scale durable strategies for delivering inclusive outcomes. The Hub will provide an innovation space to explore the next frontier of public service—co-developing promising prototypes and rigorously assessing what will work, for whom, and under what conditions.
Our People
Faculty Director, Founder
Research and Program Director
Faculty Assistant
Fellow
Fellow
Research Associate
Research Associate
"Good Services"
Chief Equity Officers Collaborative
Research-to-Action Field-building
"Good Services"
Good Services
Improving outcomes for city residents by identifying, building on, and scaling leading practices for delivering more effective public services through integrating disciplines like behavioral insights, customer experience, and implementation science.
Chief Equity Officers Collaborative
Chief Equity Officers Collaborative
A learning community for municipal Chief Equity Officers, with Data-Smart City Solutions.
Research-to-Action Field-building
Research-to-Action Field-building
Equipping leaders and communities with practical and essential data, tools, and insights to nimbly advance resident outcomes in complex policy, legal, and regulatory environments.
