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What is the LIA?

The Leadership in Action (LIA) is a 6-week immersive experience during which you step beyond the classroom and apply your leadership skills in real-world settings. You will design, propose, and execute a project that strives to create meaningful, ethical, and sustainable impact.

What will you do during your LIA?

🛠️ Design your own project: define a challenge, set clear objectives, and develop a plan to contribute meaningfully.

🤝 Partner with local agents of change: collaborate with local organisations, change makers, and grassroots initiatives to contribute to a project aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

📝 Take on responsibility & accountability: lead, solve problems, and adapt as challenges arise. Manage your time, communicate effectively, and deliver results.

🌀 Engage ethically: your LIA is not about ‘helping’ others or imposing solutions; it is about working with communities, and ensuring your project is mutually beneficial, non-extractive, and aligned with the needs of your partner.

🌱 Reflect and grow: the LIA is not just about what you do; it is about what you learn, unlearn, and take forward into your future leadership journey.

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What is the LIA?

The LIA is NOT:

🚫 A traditional internship

🚫 A volunteer trip without clear objectives

🚫 A solo project without collaboration

The LIA IS:

✅ A leadership challenge where you take initiative and solve problems

✅ An opportunity to collaborate with local agents of change and work towards sustainable impact

✅ A learning & reflection experience that pushes you outside your comfort zone

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What is the Purpose of the LIA?

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The Purpose of the LIA

The LIA is more than just a project, it is a transformational leadership journey designed to challenge and develop you in new ways.

It is intentionally challenging - ethical leadership is not always straightforward, nor easy. You will grapple with uncertainty & complexity, and develop resilience. More than just delivering a project, the LIA is about learning to lead with impact, adaptability, and a deep sense of responsibility in an interconnected world.

It is your opportunity to:

🏔️ Lead in real-world contexts: navigate challenges, work collaboratively, and build resilience in unfamiliar environments.

🤝 Engage ethically & responsibly: work alongside local agents of change in ways that are mutually beneficial, respectful, and sustainable.

⚡ Turn ideas into action: move beyond theory and take tangible steps to contribute meaningfully.

🔍 Reflect, learn & grow: deepen your understanding of yourself, others, and the systems & institutions you are working within.

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Applying the Laidlaw 3C’s

With the LIA, you will apply the Laidlaw 3C’s – Change Maker Values, Character, and Capacities – in real-world contexts.

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The LIA and Other Programme Elements

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The LIA and Other Programme Elements

The LIA is deeply connected to every element of the Laidlaw Programme, ensuring a holistic leadership journey. It is not a standalone project, it is where you apply, refine, and integrate the skills and knowledge you have developed thus far.

🧭 Oxford Character Project Leading with Integrity & Purpose

The LIA challenges you to navigate real-world complexity with purpose, love, growth, humility, and wisdom. Ethical leadership requires balancing ambition with accountability, confidence with self-awareness, and action with reflection. The virtues cultivated through the OCP training helps you make responsible decisions and collaborate meaningfully with communities.

🔍 Research Project

Informing Action

Through your research project, you develop critical thinking and evidence-based problem solving skills. During the LIA, these skills are applied in new ways – ensuring that your project is rooted in real community needs rather than assumptions. Research skills will help you ask the right questions, understand local systems and context, and design an ethically engaged, high-impact project.

🌍 Networking

Building Relationships for Impact

A key part of leadership is knowing when and how to seek out the right people. The networking skills you develop throughout the Programme will help you connect with past Laidlaw Scholars and learn from their experiences, build partnerships with organisations, and engage with changemakers already driving impact, laying a foundation for a successful LIA.

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What Does Ethical Engagement Look Like and Why Does it Matter?

Deeper dive coming next week!

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Ethical Engagement

Ethical engagement ensures that your LIA:

Aligns with community priorities: responding to needs identified by those directly impacted.
Centres collaboration: you are a learner, collaborator, and facilitator, not a saviour.
Respects local expertise: recognising that communities are already driving change.
Creates sustainable impact: your work should be meaningful beyond your six weeks.

Why does it matter?

🚫 Avoiding harm: even with good intentions, projects can have unintended consequences if they are not community-led.

🌱 Building trust & sustainability: ethical engagement helps your impact be meaningful and continue after you leave.

🎯 Becoming a better leader: it builds your ability to listen, reflect, and navigate complexity, shaping you into a more effective and responsible leader.

Ethical engagement is the practice of collaborating with others in a way that is just, reciprocal, and mindful of power dynamics, prioritising mutual benefit and long-term positive impact.

Collaboration > intervention

�Sustainability > quick fixes

�Reflection > assumption

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Key Elements of an Ethically-Engaged LIA

Ethically - Engaged LIA

Community-Led & Locally-Driven

Sustainable, Transformative Impact & Continuity

Skill-Based & Strengths-Oriented

Reciprocity & Mutual Exchange

Cultural Humility & Awareness

Environmental & Economic Sustainability

Accountability & Continuous Reflection

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What We Want to Avoid

🚫 Voluntourism: the LIA is not about short-term, feel-good experiences that prioritise your learning over the community’s long-term needs. You must recognise that partners are not there to "host" you, they have their own priorities and responsibilities.

🚫 The “Saviour” Mindset: you are not coming in to "rescue" or "fix" a community. The LIA should be about collaboration, not intervention, and you should be aware that working with a partner is not the same as being "needed" by one. You should ensure your project aligns with existing efforts, rather than creating extra burdens for local teams.

🚫 Top-Down Decision-Making: the LIA should not displace local expertise or impose external solutions. You should be flexible and adaptive, recognising that many community organisations may not have the capacity for intensive training or supervision. Instead of assuming you will be given structured tasks, you should take initiative, listen, and contribute in ways that add value without increasing pressure on an already stretched team.

🚫 Short-Term, Unsustainable Work: you should avoid one-off interventions that fail to address long-term impact or unintentionally leave a burden behind. ‘Sustainable’ doesn’t mean solving everything in 6 weeks. It means your contributions strengthen ongoing efforts and leave something useful behind - knowledge, tools, or connections that can outlast your stay.

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Who Should I Collaborate With?

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Who Should I Collaborate With?

You are expected to collaborate with local agents of change - organisations, grassroots movements, or community groups that are actively working to address systemic barriers such as economic inequality, political marginalisation, or environmental exploitation.

Who Are Local Agents of Change?

Look for partners that:�✅ Are led by or accountable to the community they serve.�✅ Have a long-standing commitment to social, economic, or environmental justice.�✅ Are working to shift power rather than simply providing short-term relief.

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Who Should I Collaborate With? Examples

Examples of Grassroots & Community-Led Organisations:

These are organisations founded and run by the people most affected by the challenges they seek to address. They often have deep local knowledge, strong networks, and long-term commitment to their work. Such as:

Climate justice movements resisting pollution and extractive industries.
Community health initiatives tackling healthcare inequities, reproductive justice, or harm reduction.
Youth-led organisations addressing education inequality, employment access, or political participation.
Migrant and refugee support groups providing legal aid, advocacy, and integration support.
Indigenous-led organisations advocating for land rights, sovereignty, and cultural preservation.

Ethical NGOs & Social Entreprises

Some NGOs and social enterprises work in solidarity with communities rather than over them. Look for organisations that:

Are accountable to the communities they serve, not just to funders or external stakeholders.
Reject colonial models of development, ensuring their work is driven by the people most affected.
Focus on structural change and self-determination, rather than charity or one-time interventions.

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Who Should I NOT Collaborate With?

You should avoid working with organisations that do not align with the ethical principles of the programme or reinforce harmful power dynamics. Instead, you should prioritise direct community partnerships.

🚫 Corporations, private businesses, or wealthy institutions

For-profit companies or investment firms that do not directly serve communities.
Luxury brands, high-end consulting firms, or private enterprises that focus on profit-driven goals rather than community wellbeing.
Organisations that already have substantial resources.

🚫 “Voluntourism” or third-party placement organisations

Programmes that send students to “volunteer” or become an “intern” abroad without genuine community collaboration or contribution.
Organisations that bring in outsiders to do work that local people could or should be paid for.
Short-term projects with no long-term sustainability or follow-up for the community.

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What Makes a Successful LIA?

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Criteria for a Successful LIA

🤝 Collaborating with Local Agents of Change: your project must involve working alongside local agents of change in communities facing systemic barriers to resources, opportunities, or power. Your role is to contribute to existing community-led efforts, rather than imposing external solutions.

🌍 Ethically Engaged: your LIA must be built on ethical, community-driven collaboration, ensuring that the project 1) aligns with community priorities, 2) leverages your unique skills in ways that add value, and 3) promotes sustainable impact, creating lasting benefits beyond your involvement.

🌱 Challenging Yourself: the LIA should push you to step beyond your comfort zone, immersing you in new cultural, social, and professional environments. It is an opportunity to grow as a leader by developing resilience, adaptability, and the ability to navigate complexity.

🎯 Setting SMART Goals: strong leadership requires focus. Your project should have SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals to ensure there are clear, realistic and community-driven outcomes rather than vague aspirations.

🏔️ Advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): your project should contribute to one or more UN SDGs in ways that are locally relevant and work towards addressing systemic challenges, ensuring that your efforts align with global priorities for sustainable development.

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Dos and Don’ts of LIA Planning

	Do!	Don’t!
Collaborating with Local Agents of Change	Partner with grassroots or community-led organisations already working on systemic challenges; contribute to their existing efforts.	Choose a large, well-resourced institution that works independently without community input; create a new initiative without understanding local context.
Ethically Engaged	Aligns with community priorities, leverages your strengths/skills, and builds long-term capacity for the community	Focus on your own experiences or assumptions; extractive or one-sided; lacks community voice or long-term impact.
Challenging Yourself	Immerses Scholar in a new environment culturally, socially, or professionally; requires adaptability and resilience.	Takes place in a familiar or comfortable setting with little challenge or risk of failure; does not push your growth.
Setting SMART Goals	Clearly defined goals that are specific, measurable, and achievable within 6 weeks.	Vague or overly ambitious goals; goals that are not grounded in real-world needs or not developed with community input.
Advancing the UN SDGs	Addresses one or more SDGs in ways that are context-specific and meaningful to the local community.	Ties to SDGs are superficial or performative; lacks relevance to local systemic challenges.

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Aim for LIA Projects along these lines!�

Supporting a Community-Led Literacy Programme: a Scholar partners with a local nonprofit to develop and deliver a literacy programme for an underserved community. The curriculum is co-designed with local teachers and tailored to the community’s needs.

Why: the project is community-led, addresses a systemic barrier (lack of access to education), and focuses on sustainable impact. The Scholar contributes their skills (e.g. research, curriculum design) while learning from local educators.

Collaborating on an Environmental Conservation Initiative: a Scholar works with a grassroots organisation to design and implement a local conservation project. The initiative is based on traditional ecological knowledge and involves training community members to maintain the project long-term.

Why: the project aligns with community priorities, promotes environmental sustainability, and builds local capacity. The Scholar’s role is supportive and collaborative, rather than directive.

Working with a Community Health Organisation: a Scholar partners with a local health clinic to develop a public health campaign addressing a specific issue, such as maternal health. The campaign is designed with input from community health workers and tailored to local cultural practices.

Why: the project addresses a systemic health inequity, respects local knowledge, and is designed for long-term impact. The Scholar’s role is to support, not overtake, the initiative.

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Avoid these types of LIA Projects…�

Building a School Without Community Input: a Scholar goes on an ‘internship’ organised by a 3^rd party and works on the construction of a school without consulting local leaders or understanding the community’s educational needs.

Why: the project is top-down, lacks community involvement, and may not address the root causes of educational inequities. It risks being unsustainable and perpetuating a saviour narrative.

Teaching English Without Relevant Experience: a Scholar with no teaching experience or knowledge of the local language volunteers to teach English at a community centre. The lessons are not tailored to the learners’ needs or cultural context.

Why: the project is superficial, lacks meaningful impact, and may displace local teachers. It reflects a voluntourism approach rather than a skill-based, collaborative effort.

Leading a Workshop Without Cultural Sensitivity: a Scholar designs and delivers a leadership workshop for young people in a community without researching local cultural norms or power dynamics. The content is not relevant or respectful of the community’s context.

Why: the project ignores local knowledge and risks imposing external values. It reflects a lack of cultural humility and fails to foster mutual learning.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Frequently Asked Questions

Does my LIA need to be international?

No. The Laidlaw Scholars Programme requires that at least one of your two summer projects is completed internationally. If your research project is international, your LIA can be local.

Can my LIA be research-based?

We strongly encourage Scholars to build on their Summer 1 research by applying their findings in a real-world context through an LIA. This is a powerful way to connect theory and practice, and to deepen the impact of your research. That said, the LIA itself cannot be primarily research-based. It is an action-oriented project focused on implementation and real-world impact, not academic research. While you may gather information to inform your work, your LIA should not involve conducting formal research or serving as a research assistant.

Can I do my LIA with other Scholars?

Yes, but all participants must demonstrate individual leadership, set clear roles, and meet the LIA criteria. Collaboration must enhance, not dilute, your learning and impact.

Can I do an LIA with an organisation I have founded or currently run?

Possibly, but it depends on the nature of the project and how you design it. The LIA should push you into new leadership territory and clearly align with the LIA’s ethical principles. You will need to justify your choice carefully.

What if my project doesn’t go to plan?

That’s okay – a big part of leadership is adapting to real-world complexity. What matters most is that you engage ethically, reflect deeply, and learn from challenges. Keep your programme team informed and seek support if needed.