Co-production for innovation: the urban living lab experience

Abstract

Urban Living Labs (ULLs) are public spaces where local authorities engage citizens to develop innovative urban services. Their strength and popularity stem from a methodology based on open innovation, experimentation, and citizen engagement. Although the ULL methodology is supposed to largely adopt a co-production approach, connections between the two have not yet been thoroughly investigated. The paper seeks to fill this gap by examining through a qualitative analysis three experiences of ULLs made in Amsterdam, Boston and Turin. Specifically, the paper aims to assess whether ULLs can be really conceptualised as a form of co-production and, if so, which elements characterised them as innovative in comparison to ‘mainstreaming’ co-production; Then it analyses benefits and drawbacks related to their implementation

Can the power of platforms be harnessed for governance?

“…However, agencies became more receptive as they learned how vanguard agencies had productively mobilized wider problem-solving communities. Comparative research on urban living labs in Boston, Amsterdam and Turin finds similar start-up challenges (Nesti 2018).…”

“…Innovation platforms sponsored by the public sector may facilitate not only public and private innovation (Kilelu et al 2013) but also open innovation (Hilgers and Ihl 2010;Almirall et al 2014;Brunswicker and Johnson 2015;Tukiainen et al 2015;Ojasalo and Kauppinen 2016;Raunio et al 2016;Mergel 2018). Living labs and smart city platforms potentially magnify the impact of urban experimentation (Baccarne et al 2014;Gascó 2017;Kronsell and Mukhtar-Landgren 2018;Nesti 2018;von Wirth et al 2019) and collaborative platforms may encourage the scaling up of collaborative governance (Ansell and Gash 2017).…”

Applying an RRI Filter in Key Learning on Urban Living Labs’ Performance

“…This paper deals with urban living labs within a 'larger category' of living labs. What urban living labs distinguish, is indicated in the literature as follows: being localized or place-based; involvement of local government and local citizens; acting as locally involved public-private partnership; applying coproduction/co-creation with local actors; and typically dealing with urban sustainability problems [23][24][25][26][27][28]. Urban living labs may include various stages in innovation, running from ideation and experimentation to upscaling and application in practice/market.…”

“…Urban living labs may include various stages in innovation, running from ideation and experimentation to upscaling and application in practice/market. In urban practice today, however, the methodology has often been adopted only in part, with emphasis on early stages like ideation, experimental design, demonstration and testing [8,9,22,[25][26][27][28].Despite urban living labs having become a popular tool in modern urban development and transition, assessments of their performance and required learning have lagged behind. While there are many studies of individual projects [29,30] there is a lack of systematic studies on the meta-level, meaning that factors influencing outcomes of urban living labs have remained largely unknown.…”

“…While there are many studies of individual projects [29,30] there is a lack of systematic studies on the meta-level, meaning that factors influencing outcomes of urban living labs have remained largely unknown. Exceptions are mostly (very) recent in time using (small) sets of case studies, among others published in handbooks on methodology and recent journal papers [22][23][24][25][26][27][28]31,32]. A further increase in systematic knowledge on performance (outcomes) is strongly needed because urban living labs are usually implemented in a highly complex and dynamic environment that is multi-actor, multi-function, and multi-scalar, which implicates a dealing with quickly changing challenges (tensions) and concomitant uncertainty in reaching aims [6,32].…”