scholarly journals Verifying the Test Methods and Certification Criteria for New Technological Convergence Products: Using Living Labs as a Methodology

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 3269
Author(s):  
Hyung Jin Kim

The recent industrial transformation driven by industry 4.0 and related emerging technologies, such as big data and Internet of Things (IoT), have exerted significant impacts on the key aspects of new product development. As an example, new smart products are being developed in various ways through technological convergence. The convergence-oriented development of new products, however, may increase the difficulty of getting tested and certified due to the incompatibility with the existing certification standards. Additionally, it may take several years to develop and verify new standards, possibly delaying the product launch. To deal with this trouble, this study proposes an interesting idea that living labs can be effectively used in verifying the test methods and certification criteria for new technological convergence products (NCPs). Specifically, this study develops a framework for analyzing the real-use environment of NCPs and deriving the primary living lab components that should be implemented for verification purposes. The presented framework is then applied to real NCP cases to check its validity. To the best of my knowledge, this study is among the first elaborating the idea of using living labs as the methodology for verifying the test methods and certification criteria for NCPs. The specific methods developed in this study can be used as important guidelines that practitioners can follow step by step. Theoretically, this study also has significant implications for living lab literature and context-related research.

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 146045822098727
Author(s):  
Federico Cuomo ◽  
Nadia Lambiase ◽  
Antonio Castagna

Cities with their innovative capacity are key places to address critical climate, environmental and health challenges. Urban experimentations, such as Living Labs, can represent a starting point to reintroduce resources into the production cycle and reduce environmental impacts, embracing the paradigm of the circular economy (CE). According to recent studies, Living Labs at a city scale could generate significant environmental benefits, improvements in quality of life and positive impacts on citizens’ health.1 This paper aims at presenting the case of the Torino Living Lab on Sharing and Circular Economy (LLSC) to point out possible future scenarios of urban sustainable policies. The case study is analysed in five sections: (1) the description of the new permanent laboratory proposed by the City of Turin; (2) the past experiences of Living Labs in Turin; (3) the birth of LLSC and the involvement strategy; (4) the introduction of the eight admitted experimentations. In the light of the results collected, the last paragraph (5) came up with the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Treaths (SWOT) analysis in the LLSC. Eventually, it deals with the research question by offering a common ground for global and local policies focused on sustainability and CE.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1718
Author(s):  
Chris McPhee ◽  
Margaret Bancerz ◽  
Muriel Mambrini-Doudet ◽  
François Chrétien ◽  
Christian Huyghe ◽  
...  

In response to environmental, economic, and social challenges, the living labs approach to innovation is receiving increasing attention within the agricultural sector. In this paper, we propose a set of defining characteristics for an emerging type of living lab intended to increase the sustainability and resilience of agriculture and agri-food systems: the “agroecosystem living lab”. Drawing on first-hand knowledge of case studies of large initiatives from Canada and France and supported by eight other cases from the literature, we highlight the unique nature of agroecosystem living labs and their distinct challenges with respect to their aims, activities, participants, and context. In particular, these living labs are characterized by exceptionally high levels of scientific research; long innovation cycles with high uncertainty due to external factors; and the high number and diversity of stakeholders involved. Both procedurally and conceptually, we link to earlier efforts undertaken by researchers seeking to identify urban living labs and rural living labs as distinct, new types of living labs. By highlighting what makes agroecosystem living labs unique and their commonalities with other types of living labs, we hope to encourage their further study and help practitioners better understand their implementation and operational challenges and opportunities.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Luisa Cantù ◽  
Daniel Schepis ◽  
Roberto Minunno ◽  
Greg Morrison

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the role of relational governance in innovation platform development, specifically investigating the context of living labs. Design/methodology/approach Two longitudinal case studies are presented, derived from auto-ethnographic narratives, qualitative interviews and secondary documents, which cover the critical stages in the development of each living lab. Findings Empirical insights demonstrate the relevance of coordination activities based on joint planning and activities to support innovation platform development across different stages. The governance role of research actors as platform activators is also identified. Practical implications The paper offers a useful perspective for identifying collective goals between living lab actors and aligning joint activities across different stages of living lab development. Social implications The case provides insights into the challenges and opportunities for collaboration between academia, industry and users to support sustainable construction innovation. Originality/value A relational governance mode is identified, going beyond top down or bottom up approaches, which contributes a new understanding of how collective goals align within a relational space.


Economics ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 445-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seppo Leminen ◽  
Mika Westerlund

Living labs provide a new, under researched form of open innovation. Although open innovation is increasingly popular in service development, extant literature lacks knowledge of different open service innovation strategies, which companies can employ. This chapter focuses on strategies that firms can take in co-creating service innovations through living labs. The authors found nine open service innovation strategies based on an analysis of 26 living labs in four countries. Understanding of strategies and their links with incremental or radical innovation outcomes aid managers to set up an efficient innovation management. Knowledge of various strategies helps companies to succeed in service development and innovation novelty assessment based on the characteristics of the living lab.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Despoina Petsani ◽  
Sara Ahmed ◽  
Vasileia Petronikolou ◽  
Eva Kehayia ◽  
Mika Alastalo ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND VITALISE is a H2020 project that aims to harmonize Living Lab procedures and facilitate the access to European Health and Wellbeing research infrastructures. In this context, this study presents a joint research activity (JRA) that will be conducted within VITALISE, in transitional care domain, in order to test and validate the harmonized Living Lab procedures and infrastructures. The collection of data from various sources (ICT, clinical and patient reported outcome measures) demonstrated capacity to assess risk and support decision during care transitions but there is no harmonized way of combining this information. OBJECTIVE This study primarily aims to evaluate the feasibility and benefit of collecting multichannel data across Living Labs on the topic of transitional care and to harmonize the data processes and collection. Secondly, we aim to investigate the collection and use of digital biomarkers and explore initial patterns in the data that demonstrate the potential to predict transition outcomes such as readmissions and adverse events. METHODS The current research protocol presents a multi-center, prospective, observational cohort study that will consist of three phases, running consecutively in multiple sites: a co-creation phase, a testing and simulation phase and a transnational pilot phase. The co-creation phase aims to build a common understanding among different sites, investigate the differences of hospitalization discharge management among countries and the willingness of different stakeholders to use technological solutions in the transitional care process. The testing and simulation phase aims to explore ways of integrating observation of a patient’s clinical condition, patient involvement and discharge education in transitional care. The objective of the simulation phase is to evaluate the feasibility and the barriers that are faced by a healthcare professional in assessing transition readiness. The transnational pilot phase takes input from co-creation and testing and stimulation phase. The aim is to pilot the already designed activities from previous phases and collect data to conduct a first predictive analysis. RESULTS The co-creation phase will be completed by April 2022. The testing and simulation phase will begin in September 2022 and will partially overlap with the deployment of the transnational pilot phase that will start the same month. The data collection of the transnational pilots will be finalized by the end of June 2023. Data processing is expected to be completed by March 2024. The results will consist of guidelines and implementation pathway for large scale study and the analysis for identifying initial patterns in the acquired data. CONCLUSIONS The knowledge acquired though this research will lead to harmonized procedures and data collection for Living Labs that support transitions in care. In addition, this research contributes to the increase in capacity to perform Big Data analytics while accounting for each local context and across Living Labs.


Author(s):  
Seppo Leminen ◽  
Mika Westerlund

Living labs provide a new, under researched form of open innovation. Although open innovation is increasingly popular in service development, extant literature lacks knowledge of different open service innovation strategies, which companies can employ. This chapter focuses on strategies that firms can take in co-creating service innovations through living labs. The authors found nine open service innovation strategies based on an analysis of 26 living labs in four countries. Understanding of strategies and their links with incremental or radical innovation outcomes aid managers to set up an efficient innovation management. Knowledge of various strategies helps companies to succeed in service development and innovation novelty assessment based on the characteristics of the living lab.


Author(s):  
Grazia Concilio ◽  
Francesco Molinari

Urban Living Labs are socio-digital innovation environments in realistic city life conditions based on multi-stakeholder partnerships that effectively involve citizens in the co-creation and co-production of new or reformed public services and infrastructures. This chapter explores the growing phenomenon of Urban Living Labs and analyses the nature of related innovations in the perspective of ‘City Smartness' – a mantra for local governments worldwide which are having to address increasingly complex problems with fast diminishing financial resources. It goes on to briefly overview the urban governance models emerging in such environments and finally focuses on the challenges posed by these models as result of integration between the ‘technology push' Smart City vision and the ‘human pull' Urban Living Lab concept and approach.


Author(s):  
Jens Schumacher ◽  
Karin Feurstein ◽  
Manfred Gschweidl

The concept of “Living Labs” in general is not completely new in R&D. Available publications focused on local requirements and targeted on business specific needs. In this chapter available ICT for use in a Living Lab are assessed and an implementation roadmap on behalf of ICT is presented. Besides buzzwords like Web 2.0 and Triple Play, ICT enables fast and substantial advancements. To bring a clear view into the range of solutions the authors orient on an ICT layering-architecture and the client/server nature of today’s Web-technology. The roadmap takes into account currently applicable technologies and likely future trends. Technological maturity, social compliance, consumer acceptance and politics & marketregulation are considered in the critique. The breakdown shows that a few core technologies are not only sufficient for the skeletal structure, but also from the main bulk of a Living Lab infrastructure. Thus the technology for most of the desirable features of a Living Lab is on-hand, future functional extensions can be provided by open interfaces and a modular architecture of the system.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 10266
Author(s):  
Laura Marone ◽  
Rossella Onofrio ◽  
Cristina Masella

Healthcare technological innovation is a very complex process in which different actors interact with each other, creating a large number of interconnections and synergies in the design of technological innovations. Despite the increasing number of living labs (LLs) in healthcare, building and maintaining LLs for technological innovation in healthcare is challenging. Collaboration with stakeholders remains an issue of major concern in healthcare. The purpose of this paper is to identify stakeholders’ needs in building an LL in healthcare and to plan activities to foster the innovation process. The paper is based on an exploratory single case study investigating an Italian LL. Eight stakeholders’ needs were identified and validated. Specific activities were identified as improving the innovation process in terms of the stakeholders’ needs. The study contributes to the development of domain-specific knowledge and, as such, to the fostering of studies on and the implementation of LLs in healthcare.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 3833 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Van Geenhuizen

Urban living labs is a practical methodology in improving sustainability in cities by facilitating collaborative learning and innovation in a real-life environment, thereby mainly responding to the needs of users (citizens). The paper aims to filter a list of key learnings on urban living labs through the lens of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). One of the motivations is that key learnings on urban living labs are mainly derived from means-goal effectiveness (MGE) thinking while the urban setting calls for a broader perspective due to complexity and tension from the multi-actor, multifunctional, and multi-scalar character of cities. The filtering reveals almost 40 learnings as ‘overlap’ and ‘exclusive for MGE’. Importantly, five learnings are identified as specific for RRI and potentially enriching living lab methodology: ethical and normative principles like health, safety, security, and equality between societal groups, and a wider distribution of benefits and risks of living lab outcomes, in particular, contradictory sustainability issues. The RRI filtering causes three practical implications: coping with uneven power distribution between stakeholders, limited feasibility of applying the comprehensive learning framework, and challenges of overarching platform structures enabling to better incorporate RRI concerns in living lab methodology. The findings as presented in an adapted list are new, as RRI values and concerns have seldom been applied to practical innovation and have never been explicitly applied to urban living labs’ performance beyond the borders of effectiveness thinking.


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