Aspen is a place for leaders to lift their sights above the possessions which possess them. To confront their own nature as human beings, to regain control over their own humanity by becoming more self-aware, more self-correcting, and hence more self-fulfilling.

Walter P. Paepcke, Aspen Institute Co-Founder

SparkLab

About the Workshop

Launched in 2025, SparkLab is an annual workshop designed to deepen collaboration across the International Partners network. The workshop’s participants include staff members from across all International Partners. Past workshop topics have included programming, communications, alumni engagement, and leadership development.

SparkLab is designed to create a stronger community of practice throughout the network — one that continues to exchange knowledge, develop innovative ideas, and build sustainable partnerships long into the future.

SparkLab 2026

June 5-7, 2026 | London, United Kingdom

From June 5-7, 2026, the Aspen Institute International Partners hosted the second edition of SparkLab in London. In collaboration with Aspen Institute UK, the workshop brought together key representatives from across the network. The workshop’s topics focused on how global programming — including seminars, fellowships, and leadership activities — can deepen collaboration across the International Partners network.

Participants engaged in an Aspen Seminar to start the workshop, reflecting on the meaning of “belonging” within and beyond their portfolios. Across several roundtable discussions, participants presented their programming methodologies, exchanged approaches to alumni engagement, and reflected on the histories of their respective Institutes, often founded at critical moments of distrust and division in societies around the world.

During a series of “Partner Perspectives” sessions, participants shared their innovative work across the network. These conversations enabled the group to learn directly from one another’s experiences in different global contexts.

A consistent theme of the workshop was that collaboration is not an outcome, but a practice. Sessions such as “Greater than the Sum of Our Parts,” “The Power of Partnerships,” and “Dialogue to Impact: Programs, Partnerships, and Possibility” challenged participants to think beyond their individual programs and interrogate how the network can work as one to achieve greater impact.

Throughout the workshop, the group developed new ideas for joint initiatives, strengthened relationships across continents, and redoubled commitments to share knowledge and expertise across the International Partners network.

25Staff Members

Since 2025, the workshop has engaged 25 staff members from across the network.

13Countries

13 countries from the International Partners network have been represented.

“SparkLab showed how sharing strategies face-to-face deepens collaboration and strengthens the relationships that underpin all of our impact.”

– Aspen Institute New Zealand Participant, 2025

SparkLab 2025

June 11-13, 2025 | Paris, France

The 2025 edition of SparkLab brought together representatives from across the Aspen Institute International Partners network to explore the power of communications, storytelling, and impact. Centered on global communications and narrative development, the workshop examined how purposeful storytelling can amplify diverse voices, strengthen communities, and drive meaningful change through the exchange of ideas and best practices.

Co-hosted with Aspen Institute France in Paris, this three-day gathering was the first of its kind to bring together staff-level representatives from the International Partners. Overall, the workshop served as a testament to the strength of the network’s shared purpose and collective energy.

To kick off the workshop, participants engaged in an Aspen Seminar that reaffirmed how values-based dialogue, rooted in curiosity and shared humanity, is a powerful force for change. Tommy Loper (Vice President for Enterprise Development at the Aspen Institute) facilitated a session on building partnerships across the network and designing strategies to implement relationship-building in future programming. Lorelle Atkinson (Vice President of Communications and Marketing at the Aspen Institute) and John Peabody (Director, Content Strategy at the Aspen Institute) shared valuable insights into powerful growth strategies for online platforms. The group also worked together to draft a guiding purpose statement for the International Partners network:

We exist to connect like-hearted people, globally and locally, to build trust and break down barriers, in order to lead solutions to the most urgent challenges in service of a better society.

Throughout the workshop, participants developed new strategies for communicating their programs and impact with global and local audiences.