Best practices Database for Living Labs - ALCOTRA - Innovation

Alcotra Innovation project
Deliverable 2.3
Best practices Database for Living Labs:
- Overview of the Living Lab approach
- Living Lab Best Practice Database Specification
The project is co-funded by the ERDF
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Table of contents
Preface ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 3
Part A …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4
Part B …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 59
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Preface
For the study and creation of a best practices Database for Living Labs, a two folded approach was chosen
by the Alcotra Innovation project consortium. On the one hand it became clear in the beginning of the
project that a general overview about the Living Lab activities in Europe would be desirable to provide a
general understanding about Living Labs and their characterization. This part was particular helpful in
demonstrating, on the basis of different case studies, how Living Labs are operated and maintained in
different settings.
Thus part A describes the findings of a study conducted on the bases of Living Labs belonging to the
European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL 1 ). The description shows how Living Labs are deployed in different
international and particular local settings. The insights of this study were used to support the deployment
and development of the Alcotra Innovation Living Labs based on the one hand on the general findings of
the study and further on by direct coaching and consultancy of the appointed European experts. As such
the first part of the Living Lab study was used to generally outline the possibilities of living labs and
investigating preferred settings to successful deploy Living Labs, while afterwards providing case based
feedback for the deployment of the cross-border Living Labs in Alcotra Innovation project.
The second part of this Deliverable deals with the deployment of a Living Lab database in order to allow
interested industrial as well as governmental organizations a structured approach to the Living Labs of
Alcotra. Part B thus describes the structure of the database to be deployed to describe the Living Labs of
Alcotra (with the help of ERM and Rational Database Models). The work here strongly adherence to the
description of Living Labs identified in the CO-LLABS project, which has also been used as the description
template for the European Network of Living Labs. This approach has been approved e.g. by the European
Commission DG INFSO. However in order to support even further the idea of the Living Lab Benchmarking
the structure of the Living Lab Database has been enhanced to allow for the storage of further
benchmarking parameters. These parameters are based on the Living Lab harmonization cube that allows
the analysis of Living Labs according to their fulfilment of some basic principles governing Living Labs and
their maturity grade. This approach was presented and further discussed in the Alcotra Innovation project
Genoa meeting hold on 7 th July 2011 2 .
1 http://www.openlivinglabs.eu/
2 http://www.alcotra-innovazione.eu/progetto/attivita2.shtml
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DELIVERABLE 2.3 PART A
OVERVIEW OF THE LIVING LAB APPROACH
(WITH A SURVEY OF ENOLL MEMBERS)
AUTHOR: FRANCESCO MOLINARI
The project is co-funded by the ERDF
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION 7
2. LIVING LABS AS TERRITORIAL INNOVATION MODELS 9
3. OPERATIONAL IMPLEMENTATION 14
3.1 The FormIT Process 15
3.2 The C@R Workflow 15
3.3 The IBBT Research Cycle 17
3.4 The Technological Platform Model 19
3.5 The ENoLL Definition 20
3.5.1 Innovation settings 20
3.5.2 Operating conditions 21
3.5.3 Innovation processes 22
3.5.4 User engagement 22
3.5.5 Innovation outcomes 23
3.6 Conclusions 24
4. SURVEY RESULTS 25
4.1 Country Clusters 25
4.2 Age Clusters 27
4.3 Thematic Domains 28
4.4 Living Lab profiles 33
Profile #1: Single sector Business Association 35
Profile #2: Open Innovation prone Enterprise 35
Profile #3: Policy-driven Government initiative 35
Profile #4: Network-oriented University spin-off 36
Profile #5: High-tech R&D Laboratory 36
Profile #6: Business services provider 36
5. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK 38
6. REFERENCES 39
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ANNEX A: FULL DATABASE OF ENOLL MEMBERS 41
ANNEX B: ENOLL MEMBERS FROM THE ALCOTRA REGIONS 48
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1. Introduction
Much has been written about the massive explosion of Living Labs that has positively affected the European
scenario in the past five years now. Scientists, industry observers, and policy makers seem to share the
perception that the big movement (and momentum) still under way defies meaningful descriptions, making
an overall evaluation almost impossible. This perception is unfortunate, because the ‘essence’ of European
Living Labs – a successful mixture of ICT-based collaborative environments, open innovation platforms, user
centered product/service development methods, and public private partnerships – holds potentially
disruptive and long lasting transformational effects on industry, markets, regional economies and societal
landscapes.
On November 20 th , 2006, the Finnish EU Presidency launched the idea of a European Network of Living Labs
(ENoLL) for the “co-creation of innovation in public, private and civic partnership”. This was presented as a
first step towards a new European R&D and Innovation System, entailing a major paradigm shift for the
whole innovation process. Since then, a growing number of European actors in a variety of business and
non-business domains, have understood that involving people into product and service creation is of vital
importance for the acceptance and marketability of results. This has led to the launch of six non-funded
calls (the one currently open expires on February 28 th , 2012) and the acknowledgment of five consecutive
“waves” of Living Labs, endorsed by the Portuguese, Slovenian, French, Swedish, Spanish and Hungarian
Presidencies, bringing the 19 founding members of the ENoLL to 274 (including 47 non-EU Living Labs from
e.g. North and South Africa, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, and the US). A subset of these has
also given life, in January 2010, to the ENoLL aisbl international non-profit association, holding its seat in
Brussels.
In essence, the Living Lab concept refers to a set of (quantitative and qualitative) methodologies and tools
for the co-creation and validation of innovation together with the end users in real-world environments. In
these environments, people are taken across the different roles played during a normal day, and which
typically require the use and support of different technologies. Compared with traditional testbeds, where
users are not necessarily involved and the laboratory setting is controlled, Living Labs place people at the
very centre of the innovation process; thereby, innovation becomes human-centric, in contrast to
technology-centric. Further to that, Living Lab activities go on round the clock: this means that solution
developers get the opportunity to gain understanding of a new product or service in its 24/7 usage context.
Finally, in the perspective of validation, the focus is on how users experience technology, e.g. by interfacing
design and ergonomics, as well as on user acceptance. Hence, the purpose of a Living Lab is to enhance
innovation, usefulness, and usability of ICT applications in society.
To date, evidence collection on current and emerging Living Labs has largely relied on self-reflection and
some empirical analyses carried out on relevant, yet partial subsets of the movement. However, this has
contributed to highlight the complexity of a European ‘phenomenon’ which is characterized, at the very
least, by a great deal of variability in the respective aims, methods, tools, activities and results. In this
context, time is ripe for an integrated research agenda, which aims to fill in the vacuum between
theoretical developments and practical implementations, and lay the scientific basis for what can be
recognized as ‘the’ first truly original model of innovation ever appeared in Europe.
As a preliminary contribution in that direction, this paper proposes a survey of all 274 Living Labs that are
currently members of the ENoLL, based on textual information kindly made available by the ENoLL aisbl
chair. The survey was carried out, when available, on the individual self-descriptions delivered by the
candidates to the various ENoLL “waves”, otherwise on the Living Lab profiles that are published on the
www.openlivinglabs.eu website. No attempt has been made to contact any Living Lab directly for a
clarification or integration of the received and analyzed information. While this approach may lend itself to
criticisms, as it leaves a lot of margin to the discretional interpretation of the researcher, we believe it also
comes as close as possible to what can be said to be an objective and neutral presentation of the Living Lab
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movement in 2011. Furthermore, by presenting the results only in aggregate form (ie clustered by country,
maturity, thematic domain, nature of the leading organization), we have avoided the risk of disclosing any
confidential or simply personal data that was not already public or confirmed by other independent sources
(especially the respective Living Lab websites).
The structure of this document is as follows: Section 2 briefly outlines the territorial Living Lab model and
Section 3 introduces a number of operational methodologies purporting to its concrete implementation.
Section 4 overviews the ENoLL survey results – explaining in particular why and how the focus was set on
the four thematic domains of direct interest for the Alcotra Innovation project partners. Section 5
concludes the study with some propositions and implications for future work.
Two Annexes are also provided, one with the full listing of ENoLL members and the other with the profiles
of those Living Labs that are coming from the Alcotra Innovation regions.
Acknowledgment and disclaimer: this research was made possible in part by the financial contribution of
the European Commission, DG Regio, through the Government of Regione Piemonte, Italy, in the context of
the Alcotra Innovation Strategic Project, which is also partaken by the Regional Governments of PACA and
Rhone-Alpes, France, and Liguria and Valle D’Aosta, Italy. Some excerpts of Section 2 are borrowed from a
paper I presented last September at the ICEGOV11 conference in Tallinn, Estonia [1]. I am particularly
grateful to Alvaro Oliveira and Jesse Marsh from the ENoLL Chair and Secretariat for their kind and helpful
support in this endeavour. However, I remain solely responsible for any possible mistake and remind you
that none of the judgments expressed throughout the text are meant to specifically engage or commit the
aforementioned organisations.
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2. Living Labs as Territorial Innovation Models
In line with some authoritative statements [2, 3], we can define Living Labs as territorial policy instruments
where all the key stakeholders of R&D and innovation governance – namely firms, public authorities,
universities and citizens – collectively form a Public-Private-People-Partnership (PPPP) for the joint support
and management of systemic innovation according to an open, user driven perspective. In particular, the
PPPP members agree to collaborate in the co-creation, design, prototyping, validation and testing of new
services, products and technologies, experimented by and with the end users in real-life contexts, thus
achieving the preconditions for “democratizing the process of innovation” [4], at least at local and
community level. There, the human being is seen as a source of improvement and sustainable change, not
just like a consumer, a customer, or a ‘guinea pig’ for closed-door, classical prototype validation and
verification activities. To adopt these principles in practice, several real-life experimentation pilots are set
up and executed, which are normally and quite simply dubbed Living Lab’s trials.
It is quite interesting to note that most initiators of the Living Labs ‘movement’ in Europe actually operated
in urban [5] and mobile [6] environments, either to increase the participation of citizens in spatial planning
decision making or to implement User Centred Design (UCD) techniques into R&D on ubiquitous computing
technologies. Although the ‘Mobile City’ – and more recently ‘Smart City’ – concept can be seen as quite
transversal to many experiences, it is in regional development policy design that the extended stakeholders
engagement within a Living Lab’s PPPP can really mark a visible difference with respect to the UCD and
Participatory Decision-Making (PDM) approaches. In fact, the main impact of Living Labs is to increase the
economic and social attractiveness of the territory they belong to, especially by improving the conditions of
ICT-enabled systemic innovation [7].
This, however, requires the unification and coordination of several independent efforts from the local
stakeholders, while bringing about a great deal of advantages. In particular, the involvement of citizens and
businesses helps to strengthen a culture of innovation and to raise the awareness of policy makers towards
the socioeconomic value of infrastructure investments (such as broadband); the cultural commitment to
the so-called ‘Living Labbing’ leads to a permanent improvement of innovation capacity in both mature and
emerging markets. At the end of the day, this calls for an integrated, cross-sectorial, and also possibly crossdomain
approach to the governance of innovation, growth and development in a given area, which can
hardly be achieved without electronic means [8].
Typically, the ‘birth announcement’ of a Living Lab coincides with pilot users, researchers, policy makers
and businesses at local level entering into agreements, on the basis of which they engage in a long-term
collaboration and commit to practicing user driven, open innovation [9]. Thus, we may assimilate a Living
Lab to a multi-stakeholder platform, though it can also happen that the original PPPP gets structured into a
conventional legal form.
A widely accepted definition [10] describes a multi-stakeholder platform as a (voluntary or statutory) body,
comprising different stakeholders, who perceive the same problem, realize their own respective
interdependencies, and come together to agree on the best action strategies for solving it. It is like a
roundtable, where people are gathered with very different perspectives. Examples of such a platform do
abound in several, rather independent policy contexts – from Millennium Development to natural resource
management and environmental assessment, from participatory urban planning to the deployment of
Information Society. Some platforms are promoted and supported by public decision-makers; some others
just aggregate and develop spontaneously.
When people come together in such platforms, they hold multi-stakeholder dialogues, which instantiate
themselves into one or more collaboration experiments (trials). Basically, the multi-stakeholder dialogue is
not just a conversation model, but an interactive approach to get things done - a contrived situation in
which a set of (more or less) interdependent stakeholders are identified and invited to meet and interact to
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achieve e.g. conflict resolution, goal negotiation, social learning or collective decision-making towards
concerted action.
In a Living Lab framework, any trial or collaboration experiment can be positioned – even concurrently - at
either ‘stage’ of the ‘standard’ product/service development process (or chain): idea generation, concept
design, prototype generation, verification and validation, product/service evaluation and market launch
[11]. At all such stages, the work of technology innovators can get a robust contribution from the early
involvement of users in the trials under real-life conditions, which can be taken as the proper hallmark of
the Living Lab’s methodological approach [12].
From a heuristic perspective, a multi-stakeholder platform is a more advanced metaphor than a network.
Platforms suggest a form of institutionalization that networks do not have. In a typical network, problemsolving
capacity is dispersed; while in a typical platform, it is governed and brought to a more advanced
synthesis. Furthermore, an ICT infrastructure can be associated to the platform, providing efficient means
to manage, store and analyze the production results. Based on the known evidence that most networks are
often characterized by cooperation and coordination problems, which are caused by the lack of a dominant
decision centre, network management can be a success if it promotes some minimally joint activities
between actors. On the contrary, in multi-stakeholder platforms like Living Labs, the power is – at least
ideally – dispersed in such a way that no single actor can dominate, nor is management responsibility or the
accountability for results exclusive to any particular stakeholder.
Figure 1 exhibits the ‘typical’ appearance of a Living Lab’s PPPP environment as a three layered multistakeholder
platform.
Figure 1: A Living Lab PPPP’s conceptual architecture (from: [1])
On the top of everything lies the PPP (Public Private Partnership) between local stakeholders, dealing with
the strategic governance of user-driven, open innovation policy. One layer below there is the practical (and
tactical) implementation of the trials, foreseeing a key role for the Living Lab’s ‘owner’ or ‘representative’
(the real or virtual organization appointed to act on behalf of the PPP) and for the people/citizens as
‘actors’ of the individual pilot (the missing “P” in the PPPP acronym). Finally, the third layer deals with the
actual generation of (material and/or immaterial) results from the trials, going to the benefit of the Living
Lab’s service ‘customers’ (e.g. SMEs or large enterprises wanting the pre-test the market feasibility of their
engineered solutions). Depending on each trial’s positioning along the product/service development chain,
results can take the form of new or improved prototypes, products, services, and technologies, including
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(from a public authority’s viewpoint) local innovation policies and strategies. An evaluative ‘feedback loop’
from this third layer to the PPP on the top is key to ensure not only the eventual replication of the trial at
the same or another future stage, but also a collective, shared and transparent evaluation of the results
obtained. This is another essential feature of the Living Labs approach, well in line with the principles of
Open Innovation, but also a guarantee for taxpayer’s money expenditure, provided that most stakeholders
do belong to the public sector.
The relevance of the strategic layer is confirmed by the evidence collected in 2008 within the ‘1 st and 2 nd
wave’ members of the European Network of Living Labs [13], which showed how in 8 out of 10 cases, their
essence (or raison d’être) pointed at the creation of innovative places (milieux) for territorial marketing and
business (or SME) promotion, thus adding to the plethora of territorial innovation policy instruments. This
evidence can only be partly explained by a prevalence of government stakeholders (in 35% of the cases,
according to the 2008 survey) within the Living Labs PPPP’s. More generally, it stems from the shared
intuition that by leveraging on the positive externalities of user-driven, open innovation, a bigger share of
product and service inventions can actually reach the market, which in turn leads to the creation of a more
favourable and conducive environment to entrepreneurship and business development, not to speak of
employment and social cohesion.
In this context, it comes with little surprise that the majority of the Living Labs’ thematic domains surveyed
in 2008 was belonging to Government and Public Administration on the one hand, and to SME-specific
industrial applications on the other hand (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Overview of Living Labs domains - 2008 (from: [13])
In the above respect, the Living Lab approach presents itself as a new model of territorial innovation in
which the local institutional dynamics play a significant role [14]. This is achieved via a novel and reportedly
successful ‘mixture’ of ICT-based collaboration, open innovation, people (user) integration in the design
process [15] and public private partnerships, as the following table shows in more detail:
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Table 1. Comparison of Territorial Innovation Models (from: [1])
Based on the above table, we can identify the following distinguishing features that are supposed to make
Living Labs a truly new and usable instrument for the economics (and policy) of innovation:
• ICT-based collaboration: the presence of a collaborative ICT working environment between remotely
located entities is a basic requirement of the Living Labs approach, though actually fulfilled by a limited
subset of the existing experiences, as it is also the case for Science and Technology Parks [16, 17],
Research Driven Clusters 3 and Digital Business Ecosystems [18, 19];
• Open Innovation: a concept that is transversal to most territorial innovation models, being based as
they are on the integration of multiple information sources into existing and novel market transition
paths 4 . While the more ‘traditional’ models - born in the 1980s - rely on the physical proximity of
economic agents to ensure rapid and effective information exchange and knowledge ‘spillovers’, thanks
to the massive introduction of ICT it now becomes possible to situate human communication and
collaboration at a ‘virtual’ level, which makes geographic distance less important than before [20]. This
shapes a totally new dimension of Open Innovation that seems particularly apt to the development of
European SMEs;
3
For a definition of research driven clusters see: http://ec.europa.eu/research/faq/index.cfm?lang=it&page=details&idfaq=18147.
4
Alfred Marshall in 1890 first hypothesized three main reasons for industrial clustering: the benefits of pooled labour supply, better access to
specialized inputs, and the information flows between people and firms.
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• People (User) Integration in Design: the novelty of the Living Labs approach lies in the particular
emphasis given to people’s involvement in the design process since the very early stages of the
product/service development chain [11, 15]. This is something that goes beyond the traditional UCD
principles, as they are typically anchored to the latest stages of testing, verification and validation;
• Public Private Partnership: this is the most typical nature of European Living Labs – whenever they are
established as such – and in that respect, it acquires a similar trait to the ‘support space’ of Innovative
Milieux [21], or the territorial ‘Triple Helix’ required by the EC-funded Research Driven Clusters.
As Almirall and Wareham [12] point out, Living Labs engage in a sort of intermediary role between
individual users and the other local innovation stakeholders. In particular, they “organize users in needs
finding exercises contributing to ideation, support them in acting as entrepreneurs, orchestrate the
innovation process, organize user contribution in incremental innovation through localization exercises or
promote societal involvement for a certain platform, product or service. Therefore, playing a more
encompassing and systemic role in the innovation process” that structures and provides governance to user
participation in Open Innovation.
While larger enterprises seem to have sufficient resources to avail themselves of a similar kind of
infrastructure, a totally different story concerns SMEs – the natural market of election for the Living Lab’s
‘services’. The diagram below depicts the distribution of a representative sample of “1 st and 2 nd wave”
ENoLL members across a wide range of SME support services. Access to R&D communities, unsurprisingly,
stands out as being the main service offered by nearly all Living Labs. Other important contributions
emerging from the graph have to do with the role of Living Labs as technology platforms or data sources,
possibly relevant to the purposes of product/service development and/or improvement thereof.
Figure 3: Overview of Living Labs services - 2008 (from: [13])
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3. Operational Implementation
The key concept at the basis of a Living Lab is to turn users from being traditionally considered as merely
passive subjects to whom new products or services are simply proposed, into active players contributing to
the co-creation and experimentation of emerging ideas, breakthrough scenarios and innovative concepts.
Among the numerous definitions available, we select from [22] the following illustration of a Living Lab’s
components, with Innovation placed at the centre:
Figure 4: Living Lab’s components (from: [22])
Proceeding clockwise, we encounter the following:
• The ICT & Infrastructure component, which outlines the role that new and existing ICT technology
can play to facilitate new ways of cooperating and co-creating innovation among stakeholders;
• Management represents the ownership, organization, and policy aspects of a Living Lab, which can
be handled by e.g. consultants, entrepreneurs or researchers;
• Partners and Users bring their own specific wealth of knowledge and expertise to the community,
helping to achieve boundary spanning knowledge transfer results;
• Research symbolizes the collective learning and reflection that take place in a Living Lab and should
result in useful contributions to both theory and practice. Academic and industrial partners can also
provide direct access to ongoing research and research results that can be better turned into new
technological innovation;
• Finally, Approach stands for the methods and tools aimed at trial configuration and execution that
emerge as best practice within the Living Labs environment.
Over the past few years, several methods and tools have been presented in relation to Living Lab activities.
We will now briefly overview some of them in quick succession.
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3.1 The FormIT Process
The FormIT process can be seen as “a spiral in which the focus and shape of the design becomes clearer,
while the attention of the evaluation broadens from a focus on concepts and usability aspects to a holistic
view on the use of the system” [23].
Figure 5: The FormIT Process for Systems Development
In this process, three phases – Appreciate Needs/Opportunities, Design the Solution, and Evaluate Impact
(on e.g. usability, experience, etc.) – are repeated along three iterative cycles. The first is named Concept
Design, the second Prototype Design, and the third one Final System Design. The name of each cycle
indicates the expected output of it.
Besides these three cycles, two additional phases are included in the figure. The first is the Planning phase,
which can be seen on the very bottom of the picture, while the second is Commercialization, right on the
top. In each of these five phases, relevant analytical dimensions (with a same weight) are Business, Use and
Technology.
3.2 The C@R Workflow
The C@R - Collaboration at Rural - Integrated Project (http://www.c-rural.eu/) has been supported by the
European Commission, DG Information Society and Media, under the Information Society Technologies
(IST) Priority within the 6 th Framework Programme. When the project started in 2006, Living Labs as such
were not yet in place in the participant regions/countries. In this context, a “pragmatic phasing approach”
to Living Lab and trial development was introduced by [8], as follows:
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Figure 6: The C@R Workflow for Living Labs and Trial Establishment
In short, the proposed workflow rolls out along four consecutive stages:
• Preparation: setting in place the preconditions for successful establishment of the Living Lab, such
as the commitment of local stakeholders and the compliance with development and/or innovation
policies. Key activities here are joint vision and user community building, discussion of current and
prospective collaboration opportunities, definition of innovative scenarios and use cases, analysis
of requirements and definition of prospective services;
• Limited scale experimentation: demonstrating the effect of user integration on work and business
practice is necessary to convince the skeptics or disseminate innovation to followers. New ideas,
concepts and mock-up’s generated at this stage can serve as “proofs of principle” to create an
initial user community. Here, suitable technologies and applications are selected or integrated and
can also be developed in small experimental series where found appropriate, to start sharing
critical information with initial users and testing innovations at technical, social and business level;
• Extensive application development and field experimentation: in this later stage of the Living
Lab’s workflow, prototype solutions and tools are made available in full scale for user driven
validation and testing in real life conditions. To this end, the first field trials are prepared and
initiated, based on a number of operational methodologies, including training of early adopters and
demonstration of capabilities.
• User-led cocreation
and Business model operation: here the conditions are set for extending the field trials to
a full user experience as well as experimenting on new ways of collaboration with and between end
users. Thus, co-creation of innovative applications is the end result, not the premise of Living Lab’s
establishment. Additionally to that, impact evaluation of innovations on business processes, ways
of living and development models can be launched. At this stage there is a more extensive user
community willing to actively be involved. A business model governing the operation of the Living
lab as innovation environment is also in place.
A similar implementation workflow, as proposed by [24], is depicted below. We use different colors to
identify the activities belonging to each of the three layers of our conceptual architecture described in
Section 2 (see also Figure 1 above).
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Figure 7: Sample Living Lab’s trial implementation workflow (from: [24])
After the institutional definition of the PPP, an initial phase of brainstorming with local stakeholders is
realized, aimed at making them aware of the goals and features of the prospective solution concept. As a
result of this first activity, several key aspects of the preliminary usage scenario(s) envisaged for the
prototype may be confirmed, refined or radically changed.
Then follows the initial development of the technical architecture (only at mock-up level in this stage) and
its validation with the end users in order to get additional feedback from the illustration of the related
usage potential. A notable remark is that up to this moment, only the PPP stakeholders have been involved
in the group discussion and no single code line has been written as yet.
The next activity is the actual development and installation of the specific application on real devices, in
order to carry out the ‘live’ demonstrations of its main features as required. Some training sessions may
also be needed in order to support technology deployment in this phase. A number of real working sessions
are recorded, and several concrete suggestions for improving usability as well as functionality of the system
are collected. Bugs fixing and the provision of requested improvements (with or without a new battery of
field tests for further refining the architectural and structural aspects) ultimately leads to the final
prototype.
3.3 The IBBT Research Cycle
One of the earliest examples of Living Labs as testing and experimentation platforms for technologies and
services in early stages of the innovation process comes from IBBT, the leading Belgian Institute of Applied
Technologies [25]. In this perspective, the basic research cycle is based on four consecutive (and iterative)
steps:
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1) Contextualization, or a prior exploration of the technological and social challenges implied by the
technology and service under investigation;
• This step also includes Selection, meaning the identification of potential users or user groups
for the Living Lab trial to be executed, and Recruiting, or the complete definition of the testpanel
according to the predefined selection profiles;
2) Concretization, meaning a thorough description of the current characteristics, everyday behavior
and perceptions of the selected users with respect to the trial’s focus;
• This includes an initial Measurement of the sample, ie made before the technology or service is
introduced or before the test panel becomes active in the Living Lab;
3) Implementation, or the behavioral validation and operational testing phase, driven from a user-led
perspective;
• This step is supported by two major families of research methods: Direct Analysis (e.g. Logging
and other remote data collection techniques) and Indirect Analysis (e.g. focus groups, in-depth
interviews, and self-reporting techniques like diaries);
4) Feedback, consisting of two distinct steps:
• An ex post Measurement based on the same techniques of the initial one, to check if there has
been any evolution in the users perception and attitude towards the introduced technology
and service, to assess the changes and detect the transitions in relation to everyday life usage
over time;
• A set of Technology Recommendations arising from the analysis of data gathered during the
previous implementation phase.
Figure 8: Overview of the Living Lab research cycle (from: [25])
Like the picture above shows, the outcome of the Feedback stage can be used as the starting point for a
new research cycle; in this way the iterative feature of the chosen approach is made operational.
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3.4 The Technological Platform Model
The “process oriented” definitions above leave the additional issue open of introducing and describing a
“Living Lab platform”, whereby knowledge is shared and the collective work, including social intelligence, of
multidisciplinary teams and user communities is crystallized into new and emerging concepts, artefacts and
ultimately services.
Marc Pallot [26] gives emphasis to Living Labs as technological platforms (see next Figure) offering research
and innovation services for the design, exploration, experimentation and evaluation of new and innovative
ideas, usage scenarios, and application prototypes. Within a Living Lab, an iterative process takes place -
whatever innovation is to be generated - that links together the following four activities:
1. Co-creation of new ideas, concepts, artefacts and application scenarios, by means of open sessions
of collective creativity involving all concerned stakeholders and especially end users;
2. Exploration of alternative usage scenarios through setting the scene by the implementation of
different immersive techniques within real-life environments;
3. Experimentation done on various assessment scenarios for concrete applications and/or service
prototypes by the use of the Living Lab’s technological platform, also within real-life environments;
4. Evaluation of the resulting exploitation scenarios on the basis of metrics for measuring the Quality
of Service as well as the Quality of Experience, which both allow anticipating the potential degree
of future adoption by the user communities involved.
Figure 9: Living Labs as Technology Platforms (from: [26])
The FP7 ICT STREP ELLIOT (Experiential Living Labs for the Internet Of Things, http://www.elliot-project.eu)
adopted this model to develop IoT technologies and Ambient Intelligence (AmI) services by and for the
users, supported by a KSB (Knowledge-Social-Business) Experience Model [27] and by an innovative ICT
Platform operating as a knowledge and experience gathering environment. This combination of user driven
experimentation and experiential design approaches is expected to positively impact on the development
and adoption of IoT technologies and services.
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3.5 The ENoLL Definition
The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL, see www.openlivinglabs.eu) defines a Living Lab as “an open
innovation environment in real-life settings in which user-driven innovation is fully integrated within the cocreation
process for new services, products and societal infrastructures”. This definition identifies five key
dimensions of the Living Labs that are
1. innovation settings (the “open innovation environment”),
2. operating conditions (“real-life settings”),
3. affecting innovation processes (“user-driven innovation” and “co-creation”),
4. related to user engagement and
5. from which innovation outcomes are expected (“new services, products and societal
infrastructures”).
3.5.1 Innovation settings
Conceptualized as an organizational entity, a Living Lab represents an open innovation environment that is
characterized by a thematic domain (e.g. healthcare, multimedia, etc.) and a territorial dimension (e.g. city,
region). Moving from a plain stakeholder network towards a “functional region” (Santoro & Conte 2009)
requires that relevant stakeholders play their role by leveraging and articulating the network’s resources
(as illustrated by the next Figure) to foster innovation dynamics.
The paradigm at the basis of Living Labs is Chesbrough’s Open Innovation [9], assuming that firms, in the
effort to enhance the marketability of their product and service solutions, should use ideas, feedback and
improvement proposals deriving from any external as well as internal sources, such as customers, suppliers,
employees etc. However, the Living Lab approach to open innovation goes beyond Chesbrough’s firm-level
prescription that businesses should make greater use of the existing knowledge available in- and outside an
organization. Indeed, Living Labs are multi-organizational settings based on inter-organizational and multidisciplinary
collaboration, as exhibited in Figure 10 below. This structural feature indicates that Living Lab
environments can primarily thought of as (technology and/or multi-stakeholder) platforms for exploiting
the complementarities and synergic potentials between local and regional businesses, public authorities,
academia (the “Triple Helix”) and obviously people’s communities (the fourth “P” of the “PPPP” acronym).
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Figure 10: Living Labs as Functional Regions (from: [3])
3.5.2 Operating conditions
Living Labs also differentiate because of the playground in which innovation is grown. ENoLL’s definition
prescribes ‘real-life’ environments, which encourage carrying out the innovation process in an uncontrolled
context that is fully consistent with the product’s or service’s usage conditions. In particular, Følstad’s
review ([28], p. 116) proposes an attenuated definition whereby innovation takes place in “(semi)realistic
contexts”, thus considering to engage users either in partly controlled environments or in what is often
described as the uncontrolled “real-life”.
‘Users’ here generally means ‘end users’, or those specific persons adopting and being impacted by the
innovation considered. In other words, the term relates to citizens, consumers and possibly employees, if
that innovation assumes an organizational meaning. A particularly important category of end users is
represented by the “lead users”, described [in 29] as a particular group of people “on the leading edge of
the market with respect to important market trends”. The two defining characters of lead-users are that (a)
they are ahead with respect to important market trends, typically early adopters, and (b) they expect to
gain relatively high benefits from a given solution [30].
More recently, the Web 2.0 explosion has demonstrated the positive impact of involving user communities
in mass collaboration projects (e.g. Wikipedia, crowdsourcing, etc.) that collectively create new contents
and applications. Because of heterogeneity of users’ requirements and the growing demand for solutions
that are more precisely meeting individual needs, the innovation driven by users provides a very necessary
complement to manufacturer innovation. In practice, however, it is often very difficult to shift product
development activities from manufacturers to lead users: if it is not possible to find representative users for
all user groups, a broad variety of users is needed to assess all relevant user needs.
This condition that user involvement activities should take place in real-world contexts is a main difference
between the Living Lab approach and traditional user involvement methods. This means, for example, that
potential users are involved all day round. Hence, the aim here is to create as authentic a usage situation as
possible, whereas in traditional practice users can be asked to use a system or device in a so-called field
study, then in a not fully authentic context.
The rationale for such realism having instrumental value in Living Labs is that innovations should ultimately
take place in the “real world”. For example, if a user tests a mobile service, s/he can gain understanding of
how it functions and fits into her/his usage context at all times and in diverse ordinary situations: at the end
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of this real-life experimentation, the company developing the advanced mobile service will gain important
feedback from potential customers about performance, quality, efficiency, thus being able to improve the
service and to approach the market with a higher probability of success.
3.5.3 Innovation processes
Another difference between the Living Lab and other development approaches is their focus on the vertical
value chain in which customers, producers, and suppliers are involved, with the objective to create new
businesses: in fact, the Living Lab approach does not only aim at involving end users in the development
processes, because it also strives to facilitate the interaction between other relevant stakeholders, such as
research organizations, companies, public sector, and society as a whole.
Thus, from a process perspective, Living Labs are innovative because they encompass two ground-breaking
ideas:
(a) Managing a multi-organizational, inter-disciplinary collaboration for innovation (pilot configuration
challenge), and
(b) Engaging intensively with end users (methodological and instrumental challenge).
In order to be met, both challenges require specific research methods and tools, respectively to
(a) Trigger innovators and support the formation of effective innovation groups, and
(b) Engage users adequately on the innovation process.
Several methods, such as action research, community informatics, contextual design, user-centred design,
participatory design, empathic design, emotional design, and others, already exist in research and practice,
but they mostly fail to sufficiently empower users for co-creation in open development environments.
3.5.4 User engagement
Research up to now conducted on the subject of users role in innovation processes has found that needs
are highly heterogeneous and that users show a high willingness to pay for a solution that is more closely
related to there individual needs: the advantage of a user driven innovation process is that users can
develop exactly what they want. Users can have intrinsic motivations to co-create (interest in innovation
and improvement, fun to participate, etc.), but could also require extrinsic motivations (e.g. financial or
material incentives for consumers, free loan of the new IT system, etc.), which have to be taken into
account.
The focus on user engagement derives from this central and driving role attributed to users as a source of
dynamism (“user driven”), creativity and improvement inputs (“co-creation”). As the following picture
shows, end users potentially play a role in all phases of the innovation lifecycle, from idea to concept to
product/service development, from deployment for testing and experimentation purposes, evaluation and
ultimately market launch. End users are central contributors to Living Labs because they are expected to be
a source of ideas (creative role for the generation of radically new concepts), a mechanism for product
improvement (supporting role in an iterative development process), verification and validation (evaluation
role), as well as diffusion agents (marketing role).
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Figure 11: The Living Lab Innovation ‘Vortex’ (from: [3])
User engagement can be differentiated in terms of intensity, between
• Reactive modes, for example giving feedback on an existing proposal, prototype or product, and
• Proactive modes, for example becoming a source of innovation or ideas to improving a product or
service along its development process.
In theory, the benefits of user involvement in the development of new products, services and processes are
quite relevant: expected added values are for example higher acceptance among stakeholders, better hitrates
and faster time-to market. Involving users in the development of interactive systems and innovative
solutions typically increases the likelihood that those new products and/or services will be useful and
usable: empirical evidence suggests that user involvement is beneficial in such developments [31].
Let us take an example from IT industry: nowadays, IT investments are considered failures if they do not
produce an added value for the users. Actually, in order to increase the probability that users will use a
public IT system when it is introduced in the competitive and open market, this must offer users an added
value of some sort. Therefore, it is important to gain knowledge about what the intended users need and
want from technology. One obvious way to gain knowledge about users and their needs is to engage them
on the development and testing process run by the IT firms themselves.
In market research, experts usually investigate end user needs. User engagement goes one step further. It
is not purely about assessing and considering user needs in the product/service development process, but
also about actively involving end users. Therefore, suggestions, remarks and recommendations from them
need to be taken seriously: this represents an innovative business model, which asks product developers
and researchers to accept the user as benchmark for the design of a new product or service.
The strategy of this new business model, strongly linked to people, is to cooperate in a productive and
effective manner in order to jointly develop appropriate products in a bottom-up fashion: according to this
perspective, social innovation is recognized as a crucial source of innovativeness in Living Labs.
3.5.5 Innovation outcomes
The single most consensual feature of Living Labs is their overarching purpose, as captured in part (5) of the
ENoLL’s definition. Living Labs are strongly expected to be platforms fostering business innovation in a way
that bridges the crucial gap between market pull, commercially oriented product/service development and
research push, technology driven solution proposal and product/service prototyping (see next picture).
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Figure 12: A missing link in the innovation chain (from: [32])
That very aim is also reflected in the so-called “Helsinki Manifesto” [33] that established the European
Network of Living Labs and articulated its central mission by directly linking it to the Lisbon Strategy (now
Digital Agenda), the European Union’s knowledge and information society master plan. Thus, the ENoLL is
expected to have a strong regional growth and development impact by facilitating and fostering regional
innovation as interlinked with a European innovation system holding a global reach.
To that end, the Living Lab approach has been inscribed into a number of recent calls of the Framework
Programme 7 (ICT 2009-2011) and especially the Competitive and Innovation Programme (CIP 2009-2011).
3.6 Conclusions
To sum up, the Living Lab approach can be defined as a methodological paradigm that guides user driven
development and integrates users’ needs in the design of a new product, service, or innovative IT-system,
by paying attention to the following aspects [34]:
• Early and continuous participation of all project stakeholders (firms, end users, academia,
research institutes, public administration, briefly the so-called PPPP);
• Broad inclusion of end users, open process and transparent results;
• Data collection methods that facilitate spontaneous reactions, i.e. open and qualitative;
• Engagement of real users in real contexts with real systems;
• Involvement different competencies to increase creative solutions;
• Design as an iterative process;
• Insights into user characteristics;
• Focus on identifying strengths, opportunities and values;
• Prioritisation of needs in dialectical interaction with users;
• Translation of user expressions into needs and technical requirements;
• Creation of an authentic usage situation in the evaluation of the prototype.
Five principles are considered key for Living Lab operations: Continuity, Openness, Realism, Empowerment
of Users, and Spontaneity (CORES), which are described as follows [35]:
• Continuity: this principle is important since good collaboration, the so-called PPPP (People
Public Private Partnership), which strengthens creativity and innovation, builds on trust, which
takes time to develop. In particular, if users feel that their opinions and needs are important
and considered in the design of the innovative product or service, then the relationship
established with the firms, SMEs and research institutes tends to be more trustworthy
productive, and long-term oriented. Reflecting on openness also awakens questions about how
the process must be designed to cope with all the input an open process might generate: a
solution could be deploying an ICT infrastructure with a mobile platform and an online forum,
freely accessible and always-on.
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• Openness: the innovation process should be gathering of many perspectives and bringing
enough power to achieve rapid progress is important. The open process also makes it possible
to support the process of user-driven innovation, including users wherever and whoever they
are. The open process is demonstrated by the continuous interactions among the involved
stakeholders, with special attention to the users. This means that multiple stakeholders and
perspectives should be one key characteristic of a Living Lab, and can be implemented with
project-teams consisting of people from academia, private companies, public organisations,
and potential end user groups.
• Realism: to generate results that are valid for real markets, it is necessary to facilitate as
realistic use situations and behaviour as possible. This principle also is relevant since focusing
on real users, in real-life situations, is what distinguishes Living Labs from other kinds of open
co-creation environments.
• Empowerment of users: the engagement of users is fundamental in order to bring the
innovation process in a desired direction based on human needs and desires. Living Labs
efficiency is based on the creative power of user communities; hence, it becomes important to
base innovations on people needs and desires, as well as to motivate and empower the users to
engage in these processes. Needs and suggestions, priorities and requirements, collected
through focus-group interviews, open source communities and prototype tests should be
considered seriously and implemented as functions and features in the solution design.
• Spontaneity: in order to succeed with new innovations, it is important to inspire usage, meet
personal desires, and both fit and contribute to societal and social needs. Here, it becomes
important to have the ability to detect, aggregate, and analyse spontaneous users’ reactions
and ideas over time.
4. Survey Results
This section provides the preliminary results of a qualitative survey carried out on all the 274 Living Labs
that are currently members of the ENoLL, based on textual information kindly made available by the ENoLL
aisbl chair. The survey was carried out, when available, on the individual self-descriptions delivered by the
candidates to the various ENoLL “waves”, otherwise on the Living Lab profiles that are published on the
www.openlivinglabs.eu website. The results presented are only in aggregate form (i.e. clustered by country,
maturity, thematic domain, nature of the leading organization), to avoid the risk of disclosure for any
confidential or simply personal data. However, Annex A and B provide the full listing of ENoLL members as
well as the profiles of those Living Labs that are coming from the Alcotra Innovation regions. These Annexes
only use public information, available from the ENoLL website or confirmed by other independent sources
(especially the respective Living Lab websites).
4.1 Country Clusters
Following is the list of the countries represented, at the moment, by at least one ENoLL member.
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Figure 13: List of ENoLL member countries (from: www.openlivinglabs.eu)
As the next two diagrams display, 83% of Living Labs (or 227) come from EU27 countries, 17% (or 47) from
non-EU and international countries. Within these latter, 34% (or 16 Living Labs) are from South America,
24% (or 11) from Europe (non-EU), 19% (or 9) from Asia (especially China and Taiwan), 15% (or 7) from
North America and 2% (or 1) from Oceania.
Thus, all the six continents are currently represented in ENoLL, which is due to the particular openness and
inclusion policies followed by this association since the ‘3 rd wave’ call: then, it was decided that applications
as associate members would be accepted from all over the world, a policy that has continued ever since.
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Figure 14: Geographical distribution of ENoLL, EU27 and non-EU members (source: ENoLL database)
4.2 Age Clusters
In the application form, each candidate to ENoLL membership has to specify the year of foundation. The
next diagram displays how the 274 Living Labs distribute themselves according to this parameter. As it can
be seen, the overwhelming majority did not exist before 2006, when the EC Presidency launched the socalled
‘Helsinki Manifesto’.
Figure 15: Age distribution of ENoLL members (source: ENoLL database)
Quite understandably, as the next two diagrams show, the above represented trend (reaching a peak in
2008, then slowing down) is pushed by the dynamics of the EU27 Living Labs, which are about four fifths of
the overall population.
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Figure 16: Age distribution of EU27 and non-EU members (source: ENoLL database)
In absolute terms, the four countries that contribute more to the current ENoLL population – as displayed
by Figure 13 above – are Spain, France, Italy and the UK. The next graphs compare their respective age
distribution, in terms of foundation year, as resulting from the respective ENoLL application forms.
Figure 17: Age distribution of the top four EU27 ENoLL members (source: ENoLL database)
4.3 Thematic Domains
The evidence presented in the following diagram has been obtained as follows. All the application forms (or
in case they were missing, the published profiles on the ENoLL website) of the 274 Living Labs have been
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scanned for the identification of the leading thematic orientation(s), based on the statements made by the
applicants themselves. No attempt was made to contact any Living Lab directly to clarify or integrate the
received and analyzed information.
Given the framework of the Alcotra Innovation project, within which this research was planned and done,
and particularly the four thematic domains of election for the participant Regions, our focus was set to the
Living Labs that have characterized themselves as belonging to one or more of these domains (as multiple
options were also available).
As the next diagram exhibits, 39% of Living Labs (or 107) were assessed to belong to the Creative Industries
and e-Learning sector, 29% (or 80 ENoLL Members) to the e-Health, AAL, Well Being and Sports sector,
13% (or 35 Living Labs) to the Intelligent Energy, Smart Grid and Sustainable Building sector, and 9% (or
26) to the Transport, Logistics and Automotive sector. On the other hand, 221 out of the 274 ENoLL
members (or 80%) also belonged to different – and quite often, additional, thematic domains, such as rural
or urban inclusion, manufacturing, mobile and broadband services etc.
Figure 18: Thematic orientation of ENoLL members (source: ENoLL database)
Not surprisingly, as the next two diagrams show, the above represented distribution is confirmed after
splitting up the current universe of ENoLL members into EU27 and non-EU Living Labs, with a particularly
good matching between the appearance of Figure 18 and the outlook of EU27 members, while the cluster
of Intelligent Energy, Smart Grid and Sustainable Building seems a little bit overrepresented in the non-EU
and international universe.
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Figure 19: Thematic orientation of EU27 and non-EU members (source: ENoLL database)
It is now quite interesting to compare the relative performance of EU27 countries with respect to the four
thematic domains of election for the Alcotra Innovation project. To start with, the four countries that
contribute more to the Creative Industries and e-Learning cluster population – as displayed by Figure 20
below – are France (by an overwhelming majority), Italy, Spain and Germany. The next graphs compare
their respective performance, in terms of number of Living Labs in the cluster, as resulting from the ENoLL
application forms.
Figure 20: Relative performance of the top four EU27 ENoLL members in the Creative Industries and e-Learning
sector (source: ENoLL database)
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Turning now our attention to the e-Health, AAL, Well Being and Sports sector, the four countries that
contribute more to its population – as displayed by the next diagram – are Finland first, then again France,
Spain and Germany. Figure 21 compares their respective performance, in terms of number of Living Labs in
the cluster, as resulting from the ENoLL application forms.
Figure 21: Relative performance of the top four EU27 ENoLL members in the e-Health, AAL, Well Being and Sports
sector (source: ENoLL database)
We now move on to the Intelligent Energy, Smart Grid, and Sustainable Building sector, whereby Spain,
Portugal, France (not displayed here), Italy and Germany are the five countries that contribute more to its
population. Being the size of this cluster considerably lower than in the above two cases, the next diagrams
have been rescaled to ensure better readability. As before, Figure 22 compares the performance of the
aforementioned countries, in terms of number of Living Labs in the said cluster, as resulting from the ENoLL
application forms.
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Figure 22: Relative performance of the top four EU27 ENoLL members in the Intelligent Energy, Smart Grid and
Sustainable Building sector (source: ENoLL database)
Last but definitely not least, we now move on to the Transport, Logistics and Automotive sector, whereby
France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain are the four countries that contribute more to its size. In Figure 23, the
diagram concerning France has been rescaled to ensure comparability with the others. As before, the next
exhibits compare the performance of the aforementioned countries, in terms of number of Living Labs in
the said cluster, as resulting from the respective ENoLL application forms.
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Figure 23: Relative performance of the top four EU27 ENoLL members in the Transport, Logistics and Automotive
sector (source: ENoLL database)
To conclude this section, we present the following table, which lists all the EU27 countries with at least one
ENoLL member belonging to either of the four thematic domains of relevance for Alcotra Innovation.
Table 2. EU27 Living Labs belonging to the 4 thematic domains of Alcotra Innovation (source: ENoLL database)
Countries
AT BE BG DE DK EL ES FI FR HU IE IT MT NE PT RO SE SI UK Total
Clusters
Creative Industries, incl. 1 3 2 8 1 2 9 6 30 5 1 10 2 2 1 1 5 2 4 95
E-Learning
e-Health, AAL, Well Being 1 1 1 7 1 3 10 12 11 1 2 6 0 2 3 1 5 0 3 70
and Sports
Intelligent Energy, Smart 0 1 0 3 1 1 4 0 3 1 1 3 1 2 3 1 0 1 1 27
Grid, Sustainable Building
Transport, Logistics and 1 0 0 0 1 1 2 1 6 1 1 4 0 0 3 1 1 2 0 25
Automotive
Total 3 5 3 18 4 7 25 19 50 8 5 23 3 6 10 4 11 5 8 217
4.4 Living Lab profiles
In late 2007, the European Commission – DG INFSO, Unit F4 – awarded to Altec SA, International Research,
the execution of an evaluative study [13] on the potential of the emerging Living Labs “phenomenon”. The
study was concluded right in coincidence with the ICT 2008 event in Lyon, when the results of the 3 rd wave
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ENoLL call were officially announced. Thus, it only dealt with the 51 ENoLL members known at the time,
which were approached and inspected through a variety of research methods and tools – from online
surveys to interview based case studies, from Social Network Analysis to MASAI® and PACE©.
Based upon the evidence collected, the most recurring elements of European Living Labs could be listed as
follows:
- A University played a key role, ensuring a systematic and coherent implementation of underlying
methodologies (Open Innovation and the like);
- One or more local/global industries were involved as technology providers, being interested in
designing, testing or validating their prototype products and services;
- The Open Innovation concept was assumed, postulating that there is more value to companies in
“sharing and spreading” rather than “storing and protecting” the knowledge created by various internal
and external sources, such as employees, customers, suppliers, etc.;
- A real-life testing environment was established, supported by the ICT, where users’ feedback on
innovation was collected and aggregated as long as it emerged from a seamless and spontaneous
interaction between people and technologies;
- A user centric approach to innovation was implemented, putting people’s feedback at the core (or as
integral part) of the product and service design/development/validation/marketing process, especially
in the earlier stages of it;
- An external funding entity (typically a public one) made all of the above financially feasible; and
- An ‘umbrella’ organisation acted from the background, either a virtual (like an informal network) or a
real one, named “XYZ Living Lab” and being a public/private partnership composed of several local and
global stakeholders, each of them with some degree of relevance and/or expertise in the areas of e.g.
territorial marketing, technology transfer, R&D promotion or business incubation, and the like.
Another crucial element of a Living Lab should logically be the establishment of a ‘permanent’ community
of users, who are iteratively asked to become integrated in some particular stages of the
design/development/validation and marketing process, and whose feedback is collected by means of
various socio-ethnographic research methods (from focus groups to surveys, from TV recorded debates to
web based interviews and polls). However, very few European Living Labs could at the time rely on such a
permanently established (and potentially quite numerous) user community. Notable exceptions were
identified in Lulea, Sweden and Oulu, Finland, in which cases the number of involved people reached the
order of thousands. In many other cases, if relevant to its policy aims, it was the City or Regional Authority
lying behind the ‘umbrella’ organisation of the Living Lab, which took on the commitment to build such a
community, starting from the whole constituency, often as a complement of an ongoing strategy towards
bridging the digital divide or promoting innovation in the territory. Relevant examples in the latter direction
ranged from Spain (e.g. Barcelona or Zaragoza) to the UK (Manchester), from Sweden/Finland (Åboland/the
Turku Archipelago) to France (Paris) and Greece (Thessaloniki). In some other cases, it was the University
itself, holding responsibility for Living Lab’s methodology deployment, which utilised its students to run
particular trials in the area of, say, mobile innovation. Examples of such a kind were reported from Belgium
(Brussels), Slovenia (Maribor), and Germany (Bremen).
According to the evidence collected during the Study, the 1 st and 2 nd wave ENoLL members were clustered
in the 6 profiles described below. As any taxonomy, this also can be questionable in its conception, but it
has the advantages of being complete, quite informative, and without overlaps between the features of
each different group. Its robustness was also successfully tested with the members of the 3 rd wave ENoLL,
which could not be included due to lack of published information at the time the final report was prepared.
The next picture shows the frequency of occurrences of each profile in the surveyed universe.
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Figure 24: Key Profiles of Living Labs (Source: [13])
Profile #1: Single sector Business Association
It was the least represented case (6% of occurrences). The Living Lab was organised and pushed forward by
an ‘umbrella’ association which represented the interests of several companies of a same business sector
(e.g. automotive). Typically this profile was not very developed in terms of successful trials. However, it has
a great potential in two main respects:
- as a promoter and aggregator of thematic R&D and innovation initiatives in the territory of reference;
- as a vehicle for cross-national, pan-European interoperability of Living Labs trials, platforms and
solutions.
Profile #2: Open Innovation prone Enterprise
1 out of 10 occurrences belonged to this case, which is similar to the previous one, being another Living Lab
that is likely motivated by a vested business interest. However this profile, instead of a corporate
association, was based on a single enterprise’s initiative, adopting the User driven, Open Innovation
concept and/or creating a network of relations aimed at the cooperative design and validation of novel
ideas, products and services. While interesting per se, the presence of individual enterprises within the
ENoLL could also be useful in terms of exemplarity and potential transfer of the concepts, methods and
tools utilised.
Profile #3: Policy-driven Government initiative
This was unsurprisingly the most common case (35% of occurrences) within the 1 st and 2 nd wave ENoLL. The
Living Lab was clearly backed up by a Regional or City Government – also in those few cases where a nonprofit
foundation, or even a cooperative cluster, were practically managing it. The prevalent dimension of
this case is akin to local development, also as a complement to more traditional innovation policies and
practices (such as territorial marketing, business incubators, technology clusters, industrial parks, etc.). An
additional side benefit of this profile was the prompt availability of a permanent user community, obviously
emerging from citizens and stakeholders forming the Government’s “constituency”.
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Profile #4: Network-oriented University spin-off
1 out of 4 occurrences within the 1 st and 2 nd wave ENoLL belonged to this case, which - together with the
following one - encompasses that wide majority of European Living Labs that had been created or were
being animated by a University. However, this group was split into two clusters, in order to highlight the
(very relevant) number of cases where the initiative of a University was clearly identifiable as the “prime
mover” of a network of relations aimed at the implementation of User driven, Open Innovation concepts in
real life environments.
A second reason for isolating this case is that right after the previous profile (i.e. the Government backed
one), this cluster of Living Labs included the second most numerous and qualified number of recorded
trials. However, there could also be a matter of privacy here, preventing the collection of a comparable
number of successful results from the remaining two clusters, both characterised by a more explicit care for
confidentiality.
Profile #5: High-tech R&D Laboratory
Together with the previous profile, this also documents the central role played by the European
Universities in the initiation of the Living Labs “phenomenon”. Although not exclusively belonging to
academia, the majority of Living Labs grouped in this cluster had the nature of public-private partnerships
centred around the provision of testing facilities to a qualified network of stakeholders, where the S&T
orientation of those initiatives was strongly dependent on the active involvement of local high education
institutions. Most trials documented in this case did leverage on ICT as transversal, enabling technologies in
a variety of industrial domains, typically selected for their relevance to regional or local development. This
confirms the intuition that Living Labs primarily have a nature of supporting instruments to regional
innovation policies.
Profile #6: Business services provider
This was the second least represented case (8% of occurrences). This Living Lab profile depicted a private or
public, business oriented, real or virtual (cooperative) organisation, aiming to provide testing and validation
services to local enterprises – particularly SMEs. Typically this profile did not disclose a high number of
successful trials, due to obvious confidentiality reasons. Nonetheless, this cluster (like profile #2 based on
single enterprises initiatives) was seen as extremely important to the smooth progress of future Living Labs
activities, to the extent it could serve as a showcase for the consolidation of a business model that goes
beyond the exclusive dependence on external funding sources.
In the framework of Alcotra Innovation, we have had the opportunity to repeat the above assessment, this
time using as reference the complete population of ENoLL members. Quite interestingly, the composition
of Living Lab profiles described in Figure 24 for the ‘1 st and 2 nd wave’ is confirmed for the entire universe.
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Figure 25: Key Profiles of Living Labs (Source: ENoLL database)
The next diagrams compare the distribution of profiles for the EU27 and the non-EU Living Labs that are
members of ENoLL.
Figure 26: Key Profiles of EU27 and non-EU ENoLL members (Source: ENoLL database)
The project is co-funded by the ERDF
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5. Conclusion and Future Work
In this document, we have proposed a survey of all 274 Living Labs that are current members of the ENoLL,
based on textual information derived, when available, from the individual self-descriptions delivered by the
candidates to the various ENoLL “waves”, otherwise from the Living Lab profiles that are published on the
www.openlivinglabs.eu website. We have clustered the results in aggregate form (by country, maturity,
thematic domain, nature of the leading organization), thus avoiding the risk of disclosure of confidential or
simply personal data that was not already public or confirmed by other independent sources (especially the
respective Living Lab websites).
While this approach may lend itself to some criticisms, as it leaves a lot of margin to the discretional
interpretation of the researcher, we believe it also comes as close as possible to what can be said to be an
objective and neutral presentation of the Living Lab movement in 2011. Furthermore, given the framework
of the Alcotra Innovation project, and particularly the four thematic domains of election for the participant
Regions, our focus was set to the Living Labs that have characterized themselves as belonging to one or
more of these domains (as multiple options were also available).
The analysis of best practice is completed by an introduction to the territorial Living Lab model and by a
comparison of a number of operational methodologies purporting to its concrete implementation. In the
Annexes, we also provide the full listing of the current ENoLL members with their respective websites, and
in addition to that, the published profiles of those Living Labs that are coming from the Alcotra Innovation
regions (PACA, Piedmont and Rhone-Alpes).
Next steps will be:
1. A refinement of the above analysis, spotting any mistakes and completing or enhancing the comments
in support;
2. The population of the Alcotra Innovation online database (e-Atlas) with geo-referenced information
about the 274 members of ENoLL – or at least those 217 that come from EU27 countries and are active
in the same thematic domains, as per Table 2 above.
The project is co-funded by the ERDF
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The project is co-funded by the ERDF

[26] Pallot, M. 2009. The Living Lab Approach: A User Centred Open Innovation Ecosystem. Webergence Blog (http://www.cweprojects.eu/pub/bscw.cgi/715404).
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Development and Innovation. Online: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/cf/ict2008/document.cfm
The project is co-funded by the ERDF
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Annex A: Full Database of ENoLL Members
Following is the list of all EU and non-EU Living Labs that are currently in the ENoLL database, ordered by
country.
Country Living Lab Name URL
Australia Future Logistics Living Lab http://www.futurelogisticslivinglab.com.au/
Austria Mobile City Bregenz www.bregenz.at , www.livinglab-vorarlberg.at
Austria EVOLARIS MOBILE LIVING LAB (Graz) http://www.evolaris.net
Austria LivingLab Schwechat http://www.ceit.at
Austria Sound of Media LL http://somll.spiritmedia.at/
Belgium IBBT-iLab.o http://www.ibbt.be
Belgium LeYLab www.alcatel-lucent.com
Belgium Ghent Living Lab www.gent.be
Belgium EGG Lab www.facebook.com "The Egg Brussels" , www.foursquare.com "The Egg"
Belgium Flemish Living Lab Platform www.flemishlivinglabplatform.be
Brazil ESPÍRITO SANTO CIDADANIA DIGITAL LIVING LAB http://www.ncd.ufes.br/
Brazil Amazon Living Lab www.fpf.br
INdT- Well Being and Health Care LL / Mobile
Brazil Work Spaces Living Lab
http://www.indt.org.br
Brazil Habitat Living Lab http://web3.ufes.br/habitat/consulado_en.html
Brazil BBILL www.itb3.bio.br
Brazil Rio LL http://www.genesis.puc-rio.br/main.asp
Brazil Group Inter-Action LL http:www.ufam.edu.br
Brazil EDP/Brasil LL www.edpbr.com.br
Brazil Amazonas Living Lab www.sect.am.gov.br
Bulgaria Virtual Services and Open Innovation http://www.virtech-bg.com
Bulgaria Digital Spaces Living Lab http://www.digitalspaces.info
Canada Urban Hub http://www.sat.qc.ca
Canada Mandalab www.communautique.qc.ca
China TianJin-China Living Lab http://www.chinalivinglab.com
China China Mobile Research Institute http://labs.chinamobile.com
China MC² http://livinglab.vicp.net/mc2 , www.mobilelifeclub.org
Living Lab of China Mobile Communication
China Corporation (LLCM)
http://www.chinamobileltd.com/
Colombia CINTEL - La Boquilla - CO www.cintel.org.co
Colombia LIVING LAB CLUSTER TIC´S BOGOTÁ www.esicenter-sinertic.org/index.php
Living Lab ‘Antioquia, Departamento del
Colombia Conocimiento’
www.paisdelconocimiento.org
Colombia GestionRiesgoTIC Risk Management ICT http://livinglab.salvalavidas.org
Colombia Living Lab Medellín Digital http://www.medellindigital.gov.co
Colombia Laboratorio Vivo InteligenciaColectiva http://inteligenciacolectiva.co , http://knowledgefactory.tv
Colombia Living Lab Ciudad Bolivar Digital http.//www.ciudadbolivarlocalidaldigital.gov.co/english_version
Croatia Rijeka iLiving Lab www.pfri.eu
Cyprus TLL Kypros - Territorial Living Lab Kypros http://www.anetel.com
Czech
Republic WIRELESSINFO – Czech Living Labs www.wirelessinfo.cz
Denmark Copenhagen Living Lab http://www.copenhagenlivinglab.com
Regional strategic impact through creative use of
Denmark ICT (LLMidt)
www.regionmidtjylland.dk/
The project is co-funded by the ERDF
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Egypt Egyptian School Education Living Labs www.moe.gov.eg , http://knowledge.moe.gov.eg/arabic/departments/tdc
Egypt RetailNetLL www.mti.gov.eg
Egypt Egyptian-Dutch Agricultural LL www.arc.sci.eg
Finland Turku Archipelago LL www.sgnet.fi
Finland Agro Living Lab, Seinäjoki www.frami.fi
Finland Kainuu Living Lab (Snowpolis) http://www.snowpolis.com
Finland Lahti Living Lab http://www.lut.fi
Finland Northern Rural-Urban Living Lab (NorthRULL) http://www.northrull.fi
Finland Laurea Living Labs Network http://www.laurea.fi
Finland Living Lab for Design and Services http://www.ncp.fi/english
Finland HumanTech LivingLab www.jamk.fi
Finland Owela Open Web Lab http://owela.vtt.fi
Finland Digital Living Lab Espoo http://www.digitalliving.fi
Finland Nokiareena Living Lab - NALLI www.tut.fi
Finland Suupohja Living Lab http://www.livinglab.fi
Finland Suuntaamo Tampere Central Region Living Lab http://www.suuntaamo.org/
Finland TWICT http://www.turkuamk.fi
Finland Helsinki Living Lab - Forum Virium http://www.helsinkilivinglab.fi
Finland OULLabs - Oulu Urban Living Labs www.cie.fi
France LL ICT Usage Lab https://www-sop.inria.fr/axis/IUL/ll-ict-usage-lab.pdf
France Silicon Sentier Living Lab http://www.siliconsentier.org
LEVIER (Laboratoire d’Expérimentation et
France Valorisation Images Et Réseaux)
http://wireless.pirenelab.eu/levier-living-lab/
France Issy-les-Moulineaux Medialand www.issy.com
France Territories of Tomorrow Living Lab http://territories-of-tomorrow.org
France Integrative Usage Lab (IUL) http://www.lutin-userlab.fr/accueil
France TPMed Lab http://www.tpmed.org
France 3D Living Innovation www.3d-living-innovation.eu
France Autonom’IS Limousin http://www.limousinlivinglab.fr
France GREATER PARIS REGION LIVING LAB www.capdigital.com
France NIT Smart Cities Living Lab http://english.inpl-nancy.fr/
France Imaginove's Living Lab http://imaginove.fr
France eCare Lab www.i-carecluster.org
France Live with Risk Living Lab http://www.livewithrisk.com
France Erasme www.erasme.org
France Normandy Living Lab http://www.normandy-living-lab.com/
France Digital Ardennes www.ardennestv.com
France Paris Region Lab www.parisregionlab.com
France PATS - E2L www.mipypats.eu
France Innovasud RALL http://www.polenationaldetracabilite.com/
France La Défense LL http://www.ladefense.fr
France CESARS www.cnes.fr
France New Media LL www.empreinte.com
France PoC - LL www.dotpoc.org
France Design Creative Living Lab www.citedudesign.com
France CIMLAB www.ccnm.fr/ccnm.asp?idpage=15862
France Universcience Living Lab www.universcience.fr
France Ways Of Learning for the Future (WOLF LL) http://www.citesavoirs.fr/
France Tele Health Aging Territory (THAT) www.institut-edouard-belin.org
The project is co-funded by the ERDF
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France OFF-ROAD MEMORY Living Lab www.off-road-memory.com
University of Reunion Island Living Lab for
France Teaching and Learning
http://livinglab.univ-reunion.fr
France Laval Virtual Reality City Living Lab www.LVRC.eu
France QuakeUp www.prevention2000.org
Urban Living Lab (Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-
France Yvelines)
www.fondaterra.com
France Augmented Learning | Design for people www.augmentedlearning.fr
France i-Matériel.Lab http://imateriel.eu/
France CAREEP LIVING LAB www.careep.com
Hospitality, Culinary and Foodservice Lab (Le
France Restaurant)
www.institutpaulbocuse.com/fr/food-hospitality/
Germany iRegion Karlsruhe - creating the net economy www.iregion.de
Germany Mobile City Bremen www.bremen.de
Germany Knowledge Workers Living Lab http://www.cetim.org
Germany The Virtual Dimension Center (VDC) www.vdc-fellbach.de
Germany ViRaL Cooperation Lab http://www.fit.fraunhofer.de
Germany Ambient Assisted Living Environment http://aal.iese.fraunhofer.de/
Germany WILL – Workability and Innovation LivingLab www.tzi.de
Germany Nuremberg Mobile Application Centre www.nik-nbg.de
Germany EXPERIMENTAL FACTORY MAGDEBURG http://www.exfa.de/en
Germany FZI Living Lab Ambient Assisted Living http://aal.fzi.de
Germany DAILL - Distributed Artificial Intelligence Living Lab http://www.dai-labor.de
Germany Future Care Lab www.ehealth.humtec.rwth-aachen.de
Germany SMEDL: Social Media Experience and Design Lab http://www.socialmedia-nrw.de
Germany Bremen Ambient Assisted Living Lab www.baall.net
Germany Hamburg Living Lab http://hamburglivinglab.de, www.tutech.de/ik
Greece Lever- Thessaloniki Lever for Open Innovation http://www.technopolis.gr
Greece Thessaly Living Lab http://www.cereteth.gr/
Greece LIFENET www.iti.gr
Greece Cretan and South Aegean Living Lab www.uoc.gr
Telecommunication Networks and integrated
Greece Services Laboratory
http://tns.ds.unipi.gr/
Hungary Györ Automotive LL http://livinglab.shp.hu
Hungary Homokháti Rural Living Laboratory http://www.u-szeged.hu
Hungary Creative Knowledge Centre (CKC) Living Lab http://www.bacs-lea.hu
Hungary Well-being Living Lab Nagykovacsi www.trebag.hu
Hungary Innovative Learning Solutions (Flexilab) www.flexilab.eu
Hungary Green Living Lab www.ktinonprofit.eu
Iceland Iceland LL www.nmi.is/impra/iceland-living-lab/
Ireland Arc Labs Waterford http://www.tssg.org
Ireland CASALA Living Lab www.casala.ie
Italy Leaning Lab www.leaninglab.org
Italy Space2Land Living Lab http://www.filas.it
Italy Frascati Living Lab http://www.esa.int
Italy Trentino as a Lab http://www.taslab.eu
Italy ITL – Living Lab for Logistics http://www.fondazioneitl.org
Italy TLL - Territorial Living Lab for the Sicilian Region www.consorzioarca.it
Italy Living Piemonte http://www.finpiemonte.it
Italy Telemedicine Living Lab http://www.telesal.it
Italy Lunigiana Amica http://www.lunigianaamica.it
The project is co-funded by the ERDF
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Italy C.LAB - Piedmont Community Labs http://www.csi.it
Italy Living Lab of the Prato Textile District http://www.texmedin.eu
IDEaCT - Interaction Design and Communication
Italy Technologies
www.sapienzainnovazione.com
Italy eGSI - eGovernment Services Intermediation http://www.servizidisegreteria.it
Torre Guaceto Living Lab: the living lab in the
Italy Natural Reserve
www.riservaditorreguaceto.it
Italy Enerlab http://www.enerlab.orgv, http://www.enerlab.eu
Italy eToscana http://www.e.toscana.it
Italy WB@W http://www.ambientesc.it/
Italy Research Innovation Centre www.romaricerche.it
Italy X-Lab www.xml-lab.it
Italy Territorial Living Lab (TL PREALPE) www.tllprealpe.eu
LabICT-PA ICT Laboratory for the Public
Italy Administration
www.lepida.it
Italy SaMPL Cultural and Creative Living Lab www.sampl-lab.org
Italy Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna Living Lab www.sssup.it
Malta Living Lab Malta http://www.smartcity.ae
Euro-Mediterranean Initiative for Technology and
Malta Innovation
http://www.euromediti.com
Mozambique Living Lab Maputo http://www.micti.co.mz
Netherlands Freeband experience lab http://www.freeband.nl
Netherlands Amsterdam Living Lab http://www.aimsterdam.nl/
Netherlands NGL-EN www.nglen.nl , www.deventer.nl
Netherlands MiPlaza www.MiPlaza.com
Norway The RECORD online Living Lab http://www.opinion.no
Norway Wireless Trondheim Living Lab http://research.idi.ntnu.no/trimaks
Norway Borg Innovation Living Lab www.borginnovasjon.no
Norway Far North Living Lab www.farnorthlivinglab.org
Poland TUR-LL www.pbf.pl, www.foresight.pl
International Centre for Decision Sciences &
Poland Forecasting (CDSF)
www.pbf.pl
Portugal Living Labs Minho http://www.uminho.pt/
Portugal Madeira Living Lab http://www.madeiratecnopolo.pt
Portugal SJM-ILL - S. Joäo da Madeira Industrial living lab http://www.ua.pt
Portugal Creative Media Lab http://www.inteli.pt
Portugal RENER Living Lab http://www.inteli.pt
Portugal ECO LivingLab@Chamusca http://ecolivinglab.blogspot.com
Portugal FIAPAL Living Lab http://www.fiapal.com
Portugal Lighting Living Lab http://www.lighting-living-lab.pt
Portugal Smart Rural Living Lab http://www.cm-penela.pt
Portugal Sport Living Lab Lisboa - VIDELLL http://videlll.informe.com/
ISaLL - Intelligent Sensing and Smart Services
Portugal Living Lab
http://www.isa.pt
Portugal Agueda Living Lab www.cm-agueda.pt
Portugal Sustainable Construction Living Lab www.humanhabitat.pt
Portugal Ubiquitous/Invisible Computing Living Lab www.ubiwhere.com
Romania A.R.C.H.E.S www.pub.ro
Senegal African Living Lab ISEG/UNIDAF www.isegcesmi.com
Slovenia Slovenia eLivingLab http://www.eLivingLab.org
Slovenia ICT Technology Network http://ltfe.org/
Slovenia Slovenian Automotive Living Lab http://www.acs-giz.si
The project is co-funded by the ERDF
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Slovenia LENS Living Lab www.einovainstitut.eu
Slovenia E-zavod Living Lab www.ezavod.si
South Africa Siyakhula Living Lab http://www.ru.ac.za
South Africa Sekhukhune Rural Living Lab http://csir.co.za/
Spain i2Cat Catalonia Digital Lab http://www.i2cat.net
Spain Cudillero Living Lab http://www.c-rural.eu/Cudillero_RuralLivingLab/
Spain Living Lab Berlanga de Duero - Soria http://www.livinglab-berlanga.eu
CIAmI - Exp Research Center in Applications and
Spain Services for Ambient Intelligence
http://www.itaca.upv.es
Spain Zaragoza Living Lab http://www.fundacionzcc.org
Spain guifi.net http://www.guifi.net
Spain Barcelona Digital Cluster TIC http://www.bdigital.org
Spain TCM Lab http://www.tecnocampus.com
Spain LIVING LAB SALUD ANDALUCÍA www.csalud.junta-andalucia.es
Spain Río Nacimiento Living Lab www.i2bc.es
Spain Madrid4Inclusion http://www.fundacionprodis.org
Spain SMART-HOUSES LIVING LAB MADRID http://lst.tfo.upm.es/
Spain Citilab Cornellà www.citilab.eu
Spain Segovia Tech Living Lab http://www.caytec.es/
SENIORLAB – Living Lab for Robotics in an Ageing
Spain Society
http://www.fundecyt.es
Spain InnovaLab http://www.denokinn.eu/
Spain 22@LIVING LAB http://www.22barcelona.com
Spain VILANOLAB http://www.neapolis.cat
Spain eHealth Living Lab http://www.tid.es
Spain Tragsa R&D Labs www.tragsa.es
Spain Subbética Cordobesa Living Lab http://www.gruposubbetica.com
Spain Mendinet www.mendinet.org
Spain LivingCAR Living Lab www.prodintec.com
Spain RuraisLAB Galicia Living Lab www.ruraislab.com
Spain eHealth Madrid LL http://fibhgm.hggm.es/
Spain Queso Andalucia LL www.quesosdeandalucia.com
Spain ADISMONTA www.adismonta.com
Spain Guadalhorce LL www.valledelguadalhorce.com
Spain Integral www.integral.es
Spain Los Pedroches LL http://www.adroches.org/
Spain (R)LL Pais Romanico www.paisromanico.org , www.ruralab.es
Spain AGDR Sierra de las Nieves http://www.sierranieves.com/
Spain LL 'La Serena' www.laserena.org
Spain espaitec Living Lab (eLiving Lab) www.espaitec.uji.es
Spain Platja de Palma Living Tur (PdP LL) www.consorcioplayadepalma.es
Spain MIMMA Living Lab www.mimmalivinglab.eu
Spain Man & Earth Living Lab www.felixrodriguezdelafuente.com
Spain Málaga Living Lab www.energia.malaga.eu
Spain Living Lab Campiña de Jerez www.jerezrural.com
Spain SPORTIS Living Lab www.netsportis.net
Spain MOBILITY FOR SUSTAINABLE TERRITORIES www.ibilnet.com/c/index.html
Spain Legazpi BAI! Espacio territorial colaborativo www.legazpiko_udala.info
Spain Audiovisual Living Lab Terrassa www.parcaudiovisual.cat
The project is co-funded by the ERDF
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Spain RURAL LIVING LAB PIRINEUS http://rllp.ctfc.es
Spain BIRD LIVING LAB www.beingbird.com
Spain Comercios Innovadores de Bilbao www.lanekintza.com
Plataforma Cero (LABoral Centro de Arte y Diseño
Spain Industrial)
http://plataformacero.cc
Sweden Botnia Living Lab http://www.testplats.com
Sweden Innovation Cultures www.umealive.se
The Swedish Living Lab on Vehicle and Transport
Sweden ICT
http://www.viktoria.se
Sweden Living Labs Øresund http://www.oresundit.org
Sweden Halmstad Living Lab www.living-lab.se
Sweden Malmö New Media Living Lab http://www.halmstadlivinglab.se
Sweden Airport Living Lab http://www.airportlivinglab.com
Sweden Karolinska Living Lab www.karolinska.se
Sweden Users Award Living Lab http://www.usersaward.com/
Sweden Stockholm Living Lab www.sics.se , www.stockholmlivinglab.se
Sweden New Tools for Health http://www.halsansnyaverktyg.se/
Sweden SOFTEC http://aass.oru.se/Research/Robots/
Switzerland Cyber Care Clinique Living Lab http://www.virmed.net/
Swiss Living Lab Community (SLLC) (Ecologies for
Switzerland Learning in distributed Project Teams)
www.fhnw.ch
Switzerland Swiss Open Laboratory for E-Tourism (SOLET) http://www.solet.ch
Switzerland Food Living Lab www.foodresearch.ch
Switzerland iHomeLab Living Lab www.iHomeLab.ch
Taiwan Living Labs Taiwan http://www.iii.org.tw/
Taiwan TOUCH Center, Taiwan http://touch.ncku.edu.tw
Taiwan Smart Life Lab, inc. http://www.smartlifelab.com
Taiwan Taipei CVS Living Lab http://insight.ntu.edu.tw
Tunisia Start-Up Systeme Tunisia http://tunis.startupweekend.org, http://www.start-up-tunisie.com/
UK Centre for Sustainable Technologies (CST) http://www.cst.ulster.ac.uk
UK Manchester Living Lab http://www.manchesterdda.com
UK Digital Lifestyles Centre http://digital-lifestyles.weebly.com/
TRAIL Living Lab (Translating Research and
UK
Innovation Lab)
http://trail.ulster.ac.uk
UK Scottish Living Lab http://www.issti.ed.ac.uk/research/SLL
UK ConnectMK – Living Lab for Milton Keynes http://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk
UK Social Informatics Lab (SILab) http://www.ncl.ac.uk/kite/
UK Sunderland Living Lab http://www.sunderland.gov.uk
UK Birmingham Communities Building Capacity http://www.digitalbirmingham.co.uk/cbc
UK KWest Research http://kwmc.org.uk
UK Hull Service Transformation Laboratory http://www.streamonline.co.uk
UK CONNECTED NOTTINGHAM http://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/international
UK Cybermoor http://www.cybermoor.org/
MIBON: Multimedia, ICT, Business Organisation
UK
Network
www.mibon.org
UK THINKlab www.thinklab.salford.ac.uk
UK Rural Connect NWLL www.infolab21.lancs.ac.uk/livinglab/
UK City Lab Coventry http://wwwm.coventry.ac.uk/business/CoventryCityLab/Pages/LivingLabs.aspx
UK FutureEverything Living Lab http://futureeverything.org/innovation-overview/
UK Sheffield City Region www.barnsley.gov.uk
USA Roswell Voices LL http:// www.visitroswellga.com/
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Annex B: ENoLL Members from the ALCOTRA regions
Following are the published profiles of Living Labs from PACA, Piedmont and Rhone-Alpes that are currently
in the ENoLL database. No Living Labs from Liguria and Valle d’Aosta are represented at the moment.
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DELIVERABLE 2.3 PART B
LIVING LAB BEST PRACTICE DATABASE SPECIFICATION
AUTHOR: JENS SCHUMACHER
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
7. INTRODUCTION 62
8. OWNERSHIP OF EXISTING LIVING LAB BEST PRACTICE DATA 63
9. STRUCTURE OF CURRENT DATABASE 63
10. ENOLL EVALUATION CRITERIA 65
11. USAGE OF THE DATABASE 65
12. EXTENSION OF EXISTING DATABASE 67
13. BEST PRACTICES CRITERIA 67
13.1 User Involvement 68
13.2 Service Creation 68
13.3 Infrastructure 68
13.4 Organisation and Governance 69
13.5 Innovation Outcomes 69
13.6 Methods and Tools 69
13.7 Supporting SME Innovation 70
13.8 Indicator Wrap-up 70
14. CURRENT STATUS OF CO-LLABS LIVING LABS 73
15. FURTHER EXTENSION OF THE INDICATORS REGARDING THE ALCOTRA GOALS 73
16. RESTRUCTURING OF DATABASE 74
17. IMPLEMENTATION OF DB 75
18. GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR DATA ACCESS 76
19. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK 78
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7. Introduction
One goal of the Alcotra Project is to identify best practices in order to support the regions in the take up
and development of their respective Living Labs. However since the Living Lab concept as such is rather
new and only few Living Lab are actually older than 4 years it is very difficult to identify best practices in this
area. The best solutions to find best practice Living Labs is thus to utilize the experiences which has been
gathered as part of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) were a lot of Living Labs are partners in.
ENoLL is a non-profit organisation where a lot of Living Labs cooperate and exchange, thus leading to a
good portfolio of case studies. Unfortunately these case studies are on the one hand highly diverse
regarding there thematic orientation and secondly not yet categorized in a clear manner. Thus there is
currently no general mechanism applied on how to measure the quality and performance of the Living Labs
inside ENoLL. The only indication that exists about the success of a Living Lab is its capability to be
sustainable over a certain period of time. As part of the EU projects Corelabs and CO-LLabs a database was
developed which consists out of the application information that was submitted to the ENoLL in the
respective calls for Living Lab membership. On the basis of this information a DB was developed which
currently at least allows to search through the application forms to identify keywords etc. for research
purposes.
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8. Ownership of existing Living Lab Best Practice data
As stated above, the existing database was developed as part of the Corelabs and Collabs project. The
Corelabs project trigger in the beginning an Idea that a formal framework should exists in which living labs
could exchange ideas and experiences. It became very early evident that the living lab understanding was
sometimes totally different from what was defined as a framework as part of the work in Corelabs, mainly
defining a Living lab as an innovation environment with a strong user/citizen involvement and focus. In
order to, on the one hand broaden the Living Lab community while at the same time trying to narrow the
scope of the living lab, thematic calls for living lab partnership were published in different waves usually
once a year. In order for a living lab to become part of the European Network of Living Labs an application
form had to be filled out. The different calls for membership led to an development which now represent s
the ENoLL with all it’s members. In this context it is important that the usage of the application data (that
was handed in by the Living Lab applicants) was never discussed in detail nor did the application form as
such gave any hints on how the data handed over by applying for an EnoLL membership were to be used. A
matter of fact though is, that the first 3 calls and the respective evaluations of the applications where
conducted as part of the Project Corelabs and Collabs, thus application handed in under the respective 3
calls need to be connected to the projects and their related project consortia, while the last two calls (4 th
and 5ht wave) were conducted by the ENoLL organization/company. Thus the owner ship of the data
received in the last two calls could reside with the ENoLL company. In any case as long as these issues are
not clarified the data can’t be accesses publicly and thus the Database usage is at this time only for
research purposes conducted at the FHV.
9. Structure of current Database
As pointed out above, the database consists currently out of the application information that is divided into
several subsections mainly consisting out of a section which can be identified as administrative data and a
section that deals with the content of the Living Lab. The database was build up from the application forms
that were submitted either as Word-file or as PDF. Thus the database consists out of one table which
consists out of the following attributes:
• LLUser
• LLPassword
• LLFullName
• LLPostalAddress
• LLZipCode
• LLCountry
• LLTelephone
• LLFax
• LLWebSite
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• LLEstablishedYear
• CPFirstName
• CPLastName
• CPTitle
• CPPostalAddress
• CPZipCode
• CPCountry
• CPTelephone
• CPMobilePhone
• CPFax
• CPEmail
• Motivation
• User/CitizenInvolvement
• ServiceCreationandBusinessModel
• Infrastructure
• Expertise
• MethodsToolsandProcesses
• OrganisationandGovernance
• ReferencesandTrackRecord
• FuturePlans
• Tags
• LLHostOrganisation
• LLHostOrganisationType
• LLHostOrganisationVATnumber
The information provided is usually not updated, meaning that the data submitted will stay in the DB as is.
Thus an update service was not implemented for the database.
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10. ENoLL evaluation criteria
In the Database only Living Lab data is stored from Living Labs which have been approved to join the ENoLL
Living Lab Network. The approval process is conducted almost every year, meaning that there is a formal
evaluation of Living Lab applications for the ENoLL Network. This Evaluation is done by Living Lab experts
from all around Europe, Francesco Molinari and Jens Schumacher have also been acting as reviewer as well
as Lead-reviewer for this process. The goal of this Living Lab approval process is to ensure that Living Labs
can enter the EnoLL which are compliant according to the general concept of Living Labs. Thus the
application does usually not provide a ranking but instead checks whether certain threshold values have
been reached. As such all Living Labs can be considered to some extend Best practices since there is a
reasonable high drop-out quote in the evaluation process. However the evaluation is only done on the
bases of the documentation provided by the Living Labs to the Review team and there are some restrictions
regarding the application form, thus the evaluation is mainly a kind of “desk evaluation” meaning that the
actual situation at the place where the Living Lab resides is not taken into account.
11. Usage of the Database
As explained in the chapter about the ownership of the data the usage of the database and its content is
currently restricted. In general the usage is only possible for researchers at FHV who would like to conduct
e.g. statistical research on Living Labs. As such no GUI was developed to support the usage of the database
but native SQL-commands (standard query language) can be used to search through the DB. The main
usage of the database so far has been to identify similar thematic Living Labs in order to support other
Living labs e.g. in the set-up of their activities, finding a good governance structure, identify methods for
user/citizen integration in Living Labs.
The Database was used early on in the Alcotra project to identify a first set of Living Labs that are situated
in a similar thematic context as defined by Alcotra in the in the workshops in Marseille and Genoa (see the
following figure).
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Since the identified Living Labs stem from the first three calls, it can be assumed that they are reasonable
sustainable and not only based on paper. However a deeper analysis of these Living Labs has been
deferred, since Alcotra needs first to clarify the thematic sub-topics that are to be followed as part of the
project, if these sub-topics are identified (currently scheduled for September 2011) a further filtering on
the bases of the existing records can be achieved.
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12. Extension of existing database
As the Living Lab movement and the Living Labs in it are maturing there is an increased need to replicate
the success of some of the Living Labs in different parts in Europe. Thus the need for the definition of real
best practices started to grow especially towards the end of the CO-LLabs project (ca. 1 year ago). In order
to allow for the identification of Best practices in Europe an Indicator Framework had to be defined.
However the topic of Living Labs is quite diverse and it is difficult to find Indicators that can be deployed as
best practice indicators regardless of e.g. the thematic issues dealt with inside a Living Lab. At the same
time one of the biggest problems in the Living Lab area is still that no description of a methodology or
method exists which will helps to deploy a Living Lab from scratch, currently the Living Lab activities are
mainly steered by case studies with limited transferability. In order to deal with this problem the Living Lab
cube was developed by the partners in the CO-LLabs project, which identifies the different dimensions of a
living lab and describes how to deploy them.
13. Best practices criteria
As part of the Corelabs project a framework was developed to assess the performance of Living Labs
according to the relevant dimensions and characteristics of living labs. Seven categories for analysis and
evaluation of the Living Labs were identified. These categories are derived from the “interoperability cube”
developed within the CORELABS CA (EP# 035065) .
“The harmonization cube not only represents the most important elements of a Living Lab, but also enables
specifying bridges between existing Living Labs, i.e., to learn from each other, benchmark the validation of
user behavior studies, exchange best practices, and interconnect the Living Labs. Next to facilitating a
common ground for sharing, the cube model enables recognizing the degree of harmonization of used
methods and tools in Living Labs.” [4]
Later on an additional indicator was added to identify the contribution of living labs to SME-Innovation.
The categories are described below.
Figure 27: Seven Categories
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13.1 User Involvement
User involvement is one of the key elements of a Living Lab, and as such should be a focal point of mature
Living Labs. In creating usable systems it is generally accepted that they should be designed according to
an iterative approach, and that user involvement is crucial. The focus is on finding out what the relevant
experiences, methods, tools that Living Labs benefit from are. Users are important to define context-aware
services, think for example of cultural differences. Organizational issues include questions like How to
organize user involvement? How to find the right users? What about the validity? How to motivate the
users? From a technological point of view: How to get access to large user groups? How to analyse large
amounts of data? Analyzing social context data, application usage data and user experience data collected
in real-life settings presents new challenges - it’s not clear a priori which data is relevant. Therefore, new
analysis and reporting modules might be needed along with scalable, flexible storage and computing
resources to cope with large amount.
13.2 Service Creation
Service creation with relevance to the Living Labs describes the value added components that Living Labs
can bring to innovation and validation. ‘Value-added’ implies we are ‘bringing something new and needed
to the table’. Historically, the development of Living Labs has been stimulated by the cross-regional need to
improve innovation and competitiveness. Service creation within ENoLL should have pan-European
relevance as opposed to that national or regional relevance. The resultant objectives of such an
environment provide us with three underlying categories of required services [5]: services supporting
collaborative innovation, services supporting validation and demonstration, and services specific to
stakeholder requirements. On a more operational level of Living Labs and ENoLL, three types of horizontal
services structure the service matrix: technical services – communication, collaboration, demonstration,
prototyping, validation, product deployment etc., customer services – innovation, idea generation,
community services, training, specific service needs, business support, market customization, and thirdly,
intra-network services (within ENoLL) – governance, management and training.
13.3 Infrastructure
Within this context, a simple definition of infrastructure can be given as the basic facilities, services, and
installations, or underlying framework or features required for the operation of a Living Lab. In order to
harmonize the infrastructures used and/or developed in the different Living Labs, infrastructures can be
categorized by their use during the entire life cycle of the Living Lab. The first set of criteria determines
which infrastructures are chosen to be used at the establishment of the Living Lab. Infrastructures will be
chosen depending on the environment in which the Living Lab is to be deployed and the objectives which
are to be achieved. The second category includes criteria defining which infrastructures are candidates to
achieve the Living Labs’ self-sustainability. The key ones in each Living Lab will be shared within the
network. The third set of criteria will determine infrastructures are more apt to evolve and adapt than
others. These are the ones that will be considered with a higher level of scalability.
The organizational perspective describes the infrastructures used in each Living Lab with the purpose of
supporting the organization of the Living Lab. The contextual perspective describes the infrastructures used
in each Living Lab in the context of the Living Lab. Finally; the technological perspective describes the
infrastructures used in each Living Lab as the technology backbone of the Living Lab.
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13.4 Organisation and Governance
The governance structure of a Living Lab describes the way it is organised and managed at different
levels such as the operational or strategic ones. The strategic level deals with issues like: the way
Intellectual Property Rights and exploitation of results are dealt with; the way stakeholders are involved
(financial contributions, commitment, responsibility, influence), financing: public-private-partnership,
commercial; ownership of the Living Lab, i.e. its services, infrastructure, and the responsible entity for
Living Lab (dedicated organisation or consortium); the management structure, e.g. director, steering board,
(technical) program committee, user committee; driver and nature of the Living Lab, e.g. communitydriven,
research driven, business/industry driven, technology driven, open/closeness: sharing
resources/network; Living Lab development: consortium dynamics (e.g. additional partners, user groups),
subsidy/funding policy and the definition and adjustment of the agenda. The operational level includes
aspects like: working practices for the day to day management; execution & monitoring of the living lab
goals regarding the synergy, quality and progress monitoring, internal communication; the way new
software and services are introduced and validated, responsibilities and liabilities; the definition of user
group/ awareness of being part of Living Lab; dissemination and external communication: national and
international consolidation; the way projects are organized and funded.
13.5 Innovation Outcomes
Per Eriksson, Director at the Swedish Agency for Innovation systems stated ‘research is making
knowledge out of money – innovation is making money out of knowledge.’ This implies a relation between
research and innovation. The problem is that the processes of research and innovation don’t simply appear
automatically. Current research presents a view of a sociological perspective of innovation and a change
from a linear process — from research to innovation — to a user centric approach where technological
research and sociological aspects are equally addressed. Innovation is the process by which new ideas are
put into practice and can be seen as a learning/knowledge process within a community. Independent of
innovation type, a Living Lab needs to be set up from an organisational point of view to guarantee specific
Innovation Outcomes. One of the major factors is the involvement of qualified personnel to guide and
assist the innovation process. Additionally, the Living Lab should be able to involve all necessary
stakeholders in the innovation chain, specifically in the area of user centricity and user knowledge.
From a contextual point of view, considerations regarding Living Labs’ strategic market position need to
be taken into account. This can be guided by the consideration, which is the target market for innovation
outcomes – examples are creating value for industry, specific industry sectors, SMEs, society, etc. The
degrees of flexibility the Living Lab can handle with regards to these target markets also signify its
scalability in this area. Technological systems, mainly ICT, need to be set up to facilitate the innovation
processes. These necessarily support interaction and communication, which empower creativity. These
technologies can range from simple conferencing tools via telepresence to virtual, game-like environments.
Virtual marketplaces can be employed for example for the brokerage of ideas and patents. Organisationally
speaking, a suitable approach to IPR must be adopted to guarantee the financial sustainability of the Living
Lab’s innovation outcomes.
13.6 Methods and Tools
Several surveys and analysis have shown that existing Living Labs are using a huge diversity of
technologies, infrastructures and applications and some host specialist technology providers and research
institutes. Best Practices have been analyzed in order to ensure interoperability by either defining the use
of de-facto standards or suggesting extensions to existing ones where applicable. The methods & tools
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category within the interoperability cube describes different methods and tools used within the existing
European Living Lab at all stages.
Integration of the project in the Living Lab infrastructure: A full Living Lab service offering not only
requires product and service development and evaluation methodologies but also a mechanism for the
integration of the customers’ product or service into a Living Lab to provide it to the users. The efficient,
transparent and smooth integration accomplished by the Living Lab provider is the key for trust and
convenience of the customer. It also can work as a first product/service testing depending on the level of
development (market launch testing).
Co-creation: The core service of the Living Lab is to facilitate the co-creation of a product, service or
application development. This co-creative product development process can be decomposed into four
phases: Product Idea, Product Concept, Product Development, and Market Launch. For the four phases
specific methods for user integration are assigned.
Data preparation: To fulfil the customers’ expectations regarding the results and to reduce the
complexity of the evaluated data, the Living Lab provider offers a standardised data preparation. The great
advantage of the standardisation is the comparability with the results of other Living Labs. .
13.7 Supporting SME Innovation
SMEs are by far the most important category of companies. Within the European Union about 23 million
SMEs provide around 75 million jobs and represent 99% of all enterprises. Their role in the regional and
national innovation system as creators of new products, services and markets and partners for larger
companies is really crucial. As globalisation of markets and industries continues, these innovation systems
become more and more open and cross-border. SMEs must be able to participate in international value
networks in order to survive. Networking capabilities and competencies to engage in open innovation
therefore must be enhanced.
There is a need to introduce new solutions enabling SMEs participation into the innovation process. The
Living Labs concept, based on ICT-based services and open innovation, offers the new organizational
dimension, processes, services and ICT-infrastructures to improve SME competitiveness and innovation
potential and to enable SME to become protagonist on the innovation process, through partnership
building among themselves and in collaboration with supporting institutions, such as university research
centres and regional development agencies.
13.8 Indicator Wrap-up
A best Practices Assessment was conducted for selected Living Labs taking investigating the dimensions
defined above as part of the CO-Llabs project. The goal was to provide benchmarks for other Living Lab in
order to allow a self-positioning of Living Labs as part of a self-assessment. The Study should provide hints
about the level of sustainability and to share good practices within ENoLL. The results are available as
spider-web diagrams as presented in
Figure 28.
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Figure 28: spider-web diagram
The thresholds are ranging from 0 – 100 for every category. The value 0 means that a Living Lab has nothing
specific installed or deployed in this category whereas 50 means that some specific measures has been
taken. The value 100 in this context means that all requirements are fulfilled and implemented. Based on
these descriptions the Living Labs can assess themselves accordingly from 0 up to 100. The description of
the indicators are presented below:
User Involvement
Figure 29: User involvement
Service creation
Figure 30: Service Creation
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Infrastructure
Figure 31: Infrastructure
Organisation and Governance
Figure 32: Organisation and Governance
Innovation Outcomes
Figure 33: Innovation Outcomes
Methods and Tools
Figure 34: Methods and Tools
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SME Innovation Support
Figure 35: SME Innovation Support
14. Current status of CO-LLABS Living Labs
The analysis of 21 in CO-LLABS identified Living Labs shows that the status of these Living Labs can already
be classified as good. Most of the Living Labs are rather mature in the field of user involvement as well as
methods & tools. The other dimensions are balanced at almost 50%.
Figure 36: Current status of CO-LLABS Living Labs
15. Further extension of the Indicators regarding the Alcotra goals
The Indicators presented so far have been mainly streamlined according to the idea to access to some
extend the capabilities of a living lab regarding the main dimensions that a living lab have to fulfil from a
functional point of view. However for Alcotra the trans-nationality of the living lab approach is an
important aspect (also backed-up by Harald Botha from Nordforsk in the Genoa meeting). While Living Labs
can exist only in a particular spot the common history of co-operating regions, regardless of national
borders, plays an important part in today’s open innovation environments like Living Labs. In order to
measure the trans-nationality of a living lab an indicator was introduced measuring mainly how tight the
trans-national cooperation between Living Labs is. This indicator measures the degree of cooperation that
the Living Lab is involved in. Higher percentages can be achieved if e.g. a Living Lab participated in an
exchange of information in workshops, if their a common Info-workshops with other Living Labs or if there
is cooperation with other Living Labs. The following picture shows the definition of the Indicator.
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0 50 100
LL resides only in
one region
Information
exchange with
other LL, BP
analysis,
Co-operation with
LL in other
regions, LL trials
are done together,
common thematic
programmes
16. Restructuring of Database
The discussion of the previous chapter shows that a major restructuring of the database is necessary in
order to really support the best practice functionality envisaged. The indicators presented have not been
incorporated into the database so far, thus the structure of the database need to be altered in order to
allow the integration of the envisaged indicators. Additionally the database was originally meant to assess
the data only once, however the described indicators can vary with time, meaning that a Living Lab can be
investigated several times and that improvements as well as aggravations can be measured over the time.
This leads to certain requirements regarding the structure of the database, mainly meaning that a single
table is not anymore appropriate for this kind of database. Based on the requirements formulated
beforehand a new ERM (entity Relationship model) for the Database structured was developed. The
following Entity Relationship Model shows the new structure of the BP database:
ID
LLWebsite
Motivation
ServiceCreation_
AndBusinessModel
Infrastructure
LLUser
LLEstablishedYear
Description
ReferencesAnd
TrackReckord
Expertise
LLFullName
ID_LLContactPerson
UserCitizien_
Involvment
FuturePlans
MethodsTools
AndProcesses
LLDB_bpreport
1
1
LLDB_Institution
ID
OrganisationAnd
Governance
InstitutionName
LLHostOrganisation
LLHostOrganisation
Type
LLHostOrganisation
VATNumber
Tags
Additional_description
ID_LL_KPIs
n
m
ZipCode
Country
Telephone
Fax
Website
1
n
ID
ID
LLDB_People_Involved
LLDB_LL_KPIs
ID_LL
Report
file
Title
Role
Phone
SME_InnovationSupport
International
Organisation_and_
Governance
Innovation_outcomes
FirstName
Institution
Fax
UserInvolvment
Methods_and_tools
LastName
Postal_address
Country
ServiceCreation
Reviewer
E_Mail
Zip_code
Mobile_phone
Infrastructure
Date
Figure 37: Entity Relationship Model
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As it can be seen the new database is split up in 4 tables:
1. LLDB_bpreport
This table consist mainly out of the data that is similar to the information required to apply for an
ENoLL membership and describes the purpose of the living lab.
2. LLDB_Institution
This table is meant to represent the organizational details of the Living lab , which institution is actually
maintaining the living lab, how to reach the living lab etc.
3. LLDB_People_Involved
This table is collecting the information about the people who are involved in a particular living lab the
ERM shows that there can be several people involved in one living lab. Ultimately the idea is to link this
information to the E-Atlas.
4. LLDB_LL-KPIs
In this table the indicators of the living labs are stored. The Indicators are stored in one set with the
date leading to the possibility to have different evaluations at different times and also from different
reviewers. This set-up ensures a high flexibility when evaluating Living labs.
The new structure of the database was optimised to the 4 th Normal form from Codd. Menaing that also the
access to the data should be prompt. In order to populate the new database the information of the old
Database needs to be transferred into the new structure. Thus at the end of this process there will be some
Database entries which are purely stemming form the EnoLL application process and some other entries
where an Evaluation has been undertaken (ca. 30 Living Labs). For a few Living Labs there has been also a
consecutive evaluation, thus showing how these Living Labs has been altered over the last few years.
17. Implementation of DB
In order to cope with the complexity of the data of the living labs and with the new extensions described
before, relational database environment will be used to store the data. Based on the ERM model
presented, DB-tables were developed and normalised in order to ensure an optimal usage of the database
capabilities. In line with these thoughts the decision was made to use a relational database, form the
products that are available in this category the open source solution mySQL was chosen due to cost reasons
and due to the reputation that this database has gathered for industrial applications. To enable the access
to the data already gathered as part of the first 3 ENoLL calls the data is going to be migrated into the new
database structure. Furthermore the data acquired in reviewing 21 Living Labs as part of the Co-LLabs
project will be transferred to the database. A major issue as laid out in the beginning of this report is the
accessibility of the DB due to the question of owner ship of the data. Thus a login procedure will be
implemented in order to control the access to the database.
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18. Graphical User Interface for data access
To allow a better usage of the database a few GUI-Masks have been developed to enable an easier input of
data into the database without having to deal with different data transitions. The first mask is therefore
straight forward and allows the input of all the relevant data for a Living Lab meaning that the information
stored In the Tables:
• LLDB_bpreport
• LLDB_Institution
• LLDB_People_Involved
can be accessed via this Interface thus allowing a user to input all the Data about his Living Lab in one mask:
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In order to search for specific records a mask has been developed which shows the information stored for a
particular Living Lab in a condensed form:
Furthermore a mask was developed to search through the living lab in the database to identify living lab
through Keywords in the different sections.
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19. Conclusion and Outlook
As described above the database set-up was influenced by the experienced gathered over different studies
during the last years and based on the results of the former best practice studies in different EU-Projects.
The existing database has proved to be usable to identify similar thematic Living labs for the Alcotra
Project. The structure of the Living Lab database was refined in order to allow a better identification of
Living Lab best practices in different Living Lab dimensions identified as part of former EU projects
(Corelabs, Co-LLabs) but also as part of requirements from Alcotra. The new database concept thus
represents a step forward in order to deal with the assessment of Living Labs in a real best practice fashion.
The ownership of the data in the database remains a problem for all the legacy data, the legacy data won’t
be available for public access. In order to deal with this situation a flag will be introduced which prevents
the usage of the legacy data for the public, while allowing the access to all the data that has been cleared
by the Owners. However without a deeper knowledge on how to interpret the data and furthermore who
has done the benchmarking etc. a public access to this data looks in any case not specifically useful.
The framework presented and discussed in the Alcotra Workshop in Genoa was implemented into the
database to enable a better assessment of the best practices. The new database allows a real
benchmarking approach and to search for Living Labs not only on the topic but additionally on specific
features of the Living Labs (e.g. governance model, user integration etc.). Currently Benchmarking data
exists for ca. 20 Living Labs which have been investigated using the extended best practice Framework. The
next steps are the population of the databases with the Alcotra Living Lab data core data and afterwards a
first evaluation of this data according to the Framework.
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