Questions Lab (Q-Lab) is a multidisciplinary initiative to establish questions as a field of study and practice — drawing on the science of science, epistemology, innovation studies, data and information science and participatory inquiry — so that individuals and institutions can navigate complexity and set better priorities.
Today, questions are most often discussed in narrow, instrumental terms: as prompts to feed an AI system or as items on a survey. Beyond these framings, we tend to assume that we are all naturally competent questioners, drawing on the innate urge to ask that emerges in early childhood and drives how we learn. Yet the capacity to ask does not guarantee the capacity to ask well.
At present, we lack a science of questions: a field dedicated to understanding what we know about questions.
This gap has grown more consequential. As data science and artificial intelligence accelerate the production of answers at unprecedented scale, the capacity to formulate meaningful questions becomes increasingly central to inquiry. When answers grow abundant and are increasingly generated through automated processes, the framing of good questions emerges as a distinct frontier of human discovery.
The stakes extend beyond research: in an era of disinformation and eroding trust, questions are also a vehicle for better-informed public debate and a healthier democracy, helping citizens interrogate claims, weigh evidence, and deliberate more thoughtfully.
Q-Lab has been launched to address this gap, treating questions as core infrastructure for how institutions and societies learn, decide, and govern, and to help societies ask better questions.
What We Do
Building the theoretical and empirical foundations of a science of questions. This includes novel research on the role of questioning in society, what makes a good question, and how questions emerge among other topics. We are curating a research agenda for questions to help advance the field.
Developing methods and tools that help institutions ask and act on better questions. We are developing taxonomies for defining and prioritizing questions across high-impact fields and toolkits to help institutions integrate questions-led approaches within their decision making processes. Additionally, we have extended our 100 Questions Initiative for prioritizing questions across more domains.
Equipping individuals and organizations with the capacity to question more effectively. We host Q-Labs to improve question fluency across several domains and industries.
Who We Are
Founder of Q-Lab, Co-Founder of The GovLab
Research and Partnership Manager at The GovLab
Research Intern at The GovLab
Coming Soon
Q-Lab will be supported by a Committee of 15 experts from around the world to advance the science of questions. The Committee will be announced in October 2026.
Read our essays, methodologies, blogs, and field notes on how questions shape what societies know, govern, and discover.
