Living Lab Process - KatharinaIoT/IoT-Project-HHZ GitHub Wiki

The Living Lab is a collaborative research method within an open innovation ecosystem. Unlike a conventional laboratory, the Living Lab works in a real context with a user-centred approach. So it combines research and innovation, which is also called co-creation. The physical and/or organizational boundaries of a Living Lab are defined by purpose, scope and context. The scope, objectives, duration, involvement of stakeholders, level of involvement and limits of the Living Lab are open to participants. A Living Lab could therefore take place on a street, in a house, within an organisation. It could also include a whole city or just an industry. These depend on the project.

An important part of the Living Lab method is the collaboration and cooperation of users and developers, so that all created concepts, scenarios, ideas and related technological artefacts reflect the experiences, needs and desires of the users and are based on real use cases. The users actively contribute to the entire innovation process. The process consists of the following phases:

• Co-creation
• Exploration
• Experimentation
• Evaluation

More details on the individual phases are available on the respective subpages.

Why should a Living Lab be organized?

When complex challenges are addressed in an evolving and changing real context, it becomes very difficult for a single actor to find the right solution. Through the cooperation of different users and actors, and by jointly developing approaches to solutions, complexity and uncertainty are reduced and the chance for a sustainable solution is increased. Research shows that Living Labs with network structures based on comprehensive knowledge and information exchange and cooperation between several actors are more likely to lead to radical innovations than centralized network structures that are more likely to lead to incremental changes and innovations.