Each Idea Lab provides a forum for a small group of graduate students with a shared interest to meet regularly in order to present their work, share ideas, discuss relevant literature, consult with other topical experts, and consider more ambitious collaboration. 

Big Ideas @ Berkeley sponors the Idea Labs Competition
designed to encourage outgoing and entrepreneurial students to propose and build their own Idea Labs. Big Ideas is interested in supporting like-minded groups in a wide rante of areas, including science, engineering, social sciences and humanities. 

BERC students participate in the following Idea Labs:

Climate Policy - The goal of the Climate Policy Idea Lab is to serve as an interdisciplinary forum for discussion of climate policy on the Berkeley campus. The topics covered are as broad are as broad as the members' interests and include anything from land-use policy to climate law to adaptation to international technology transfer. 

PV Idea Lab - The original idea lab, started in 2006, brings together numberous graduate student researchers from over 10 research labs around UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  Since its inception by COINS (The Center of Integrated Nanomechanical Systems), it has become an important forum for accelerating progress in PV research.

Energy Efficiency and Conservation Particular interests of this group include behavior change, energy financing, entrepreneurial opportunities in EE&C, and effective policy to encourage EE&C.

Green Policy Innovations - Focusing on graduate student work at the nexus of environmental problem-solving and emerging technologies, drawing from sociology, business and management studies, law, organizational studies, political science, anthropology, city and regional planning, public policy and environmental policy analysis to apply perspectives from social science disciplines to important debates about green innovation.

Rural Electrification in the Developing World - The Rural Electrification Idea Lab’s primary objective is to bring
people together from different schools, departments and research groups at Berkeley to discuss ways to increase access to electricity for communities in the rural developing world. We will draw on the expertise of our diverse members to create a dynamic forum for sharing ideas on innovative technical, economic and social approaches to bringing reliable and affordable electricity to underserved rural communities in the developing world.

Berkeley Water Group - BWG was formed with the goal of providing a forum in which Berkeley students from different departments can meet, collaborate and discuss the interdisciplinary topics of water, sanitation and hygiene. Most participants are actively engaged in projects and research implemented in or aimed at less developed countries, although the group is open to engaging problems found in developed countries as well. 

Microbial Biofuels - This IdeaLab focuses on the envisioning of diverse strategies that microbiologists may utilize to contribute towards the advancement of biofuel technologies. Additionally, it serves as a focused group to facilitate collaboration across scientific disciplines, and to guide the progress of individual dissertation projects.