What is a living lab?

Originally conceived for urban spatial planning (Wanner et al. 2019, p. 2ff), living labs are a relatively new approach (Jahn and Keil 2016) to participatory work with different actors, known as stakeholders. Stakeholders are people who are connected by a common interest or concern, e.g. professional groups, companies, environmental associations or even public authorities.

In the living lab process, stakeholders and researchers come together to find solutions to a complex problem in cooperation with the aim of improving the current state. Together, experiments are developed from solution ideas (co-design), carried out, evaluated (co-production) and, if necessary, adapted (co-evaluation) until a solution path is found. During these processes, opportunities for transformation, for changing circumstances, arise. These can be, for example, a sustainable use of resources and a change in the value system, such as social or environmental justice.

Because problems can vary greatly depending on the local contexts and socio-economic backgrounds of the stakeholders and their fields of activity, there is no uniform method for working in living labs (Franke et al. 2022), no generally valid roadmap according to which each living lab is structured. However, there are common features that are applied in most living labs with varying degrees of emphasis (cf. Wanner et al. 2019, Rose et al. 2018, Schäpke 2018).

The work is done in a transdisciplinary and participatory way, which is explained below.

In transdisciplinary research, it is assumed that it is not possible to find solutions to complex social problems by having only a small part of society deal with them (Franke et al. 2021). Social issues of high complexity, such as the fisheries crisis, can only be addressed through transdisciplinary cooperation. Transdisciplinary means, according to its meaning, beyond (research) disciplines and thus means that researchers and stakeholders work together at eye level. In doing so, the participants bring in their forms of knowledge, e.g. expert and experiential knowledge, local, regional or abstract knowledge (Lang et al. 2012). This exchange of knowledge is essential in order to grasp complex problems and thus to be able to develop approaches to solutions. The degree of knowledge integration of non-academic actors plays a decisive role in whether and to what extent research is understood as transdisciplinary (Grünhagen et, al, 2022).

The basis for this cooperation is a participatory, democratic attitude (Straßburger, Rieger 2019, p. 56 ff) of all participants. In practice, participation in the living lab means that it is methodically made possible to the greatest extent possible for individuals to get involved and participate in processes and voting processes in the real laboratory. The aim is to understand social realities (Unger 2014, p. 1 and 40 ff) and to change them experimentally in the living labs in order to learn from them.