A Scoping Review Examining Governance, Co-Creation, and Social and Ecological Justice in Living Labs Literature

Living Labs (LLs) are increasingly being used as an approach to address complex sustainability-related challenges. Inspired by existing knowledge and practice gaps, calls for further examination of governance and co-creation in relation to LLs work, and our experiences in the Lake Superior Living Labs Network, we conducted a scoping review of the recent (2015–2019) LLs literature. This review focused on peer-reviewed LLs literature aimed at addressing sustainability-related challenges and involving universities as key collaborators specifically. This scoping review addressed the research questions: how are LLs conceptualized, described, and applied? how are LLs governed? How is co-creation supported in LLs work? and, are social and/or environmental justice considered in LLs work? From the 729 citations gathered in the electronic database searches, 48 papers were identified as relevant through the screening and eligibility assessment. We found that this literature is growing rapidly, highly interdisciplinary, and predominantly taking place within European urban centres. We summarize the findings in relation to our research questions and outline implications for interrogating governance, unpacking co-creation, and working towards social and ecological justice in LLs research and practice. We conclude by outlining four key research directions to advance LLs work, including, (1) expanding research across a greater diversity of settings; (2) examining and analyzing governance and power dynamics; (3) exploring how learning evolves via co-creation; and (4) examining how universities are impeding and/or supporting advances in relation to governance, co-creation, and justice in LLs work.

Educating Clinicians to Improve Telemedicine Access for Patients with Limited English Proficiency

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted the rapid incorporation of telemedicine into healthcare systems, resulting in increased access challenges for patients in the United States with limited English proficiency (LEP). Non-English-language speakers face challenges with telemedicine that magnify pre-existing barriers to language-appropriate care, such as difficulty accessing professional medical interpreters and navigating both electronic health information and online patient portals. Improved medical education on telehealth would increase equitable care for linguistic minorities. Medical education targeting telehealth care delivery should include clinician instruction on working with interpreters in telehealth contexts, increasing patient access to telehealth resources, and addressing patients’ language needs for telemedicine.

Considering Existing Factors That May Cause Radiation Hormesis at <100 mSv and Obey the Linear No-Threshold Theory at ≥100 mSv

The linear no-threshold (LNT) theory describes the linear relationship between a radiation dose and its effects. However, whether the linear relationship is maintained at low radiation doses has yet to be determined. Many previous studies support the radiation hormesis theory, which states that radiation has beneficial effects on health. In this viewpoint, we propose a mathematical function fitted to a model consistent with both the LNT at ≥100 mSv and radiation hormesis theories at <100 mSv, and the model requires a factor whose amount or activity takes a mountain-like shape versus the radiation dose and have one maximum value at 40.9 mSv. We searched a wide range of factors with these features based on searches on PubMed, and then evaluated whether these factors were suitable candidates consistent with both the LNT and radiation hormesis theories. Our consideration indicated that these factors did not completely follow the equation suggested at this time. Of course, other theories do not deny that these factors are involved in hormesis. However, based on our theory, still unknown factors may be involved in radiation hormesis, and then such unknown factors which are activated at <100 mSv should be searched.

A Call to Broaden Investment in Drinking Water Testing and Community Outreach Programs

Ensuring access to safe drinking water is a challenge in many parts of the world for reasons including, but not limited to, infrastructure age, source water impairment, limited community finances and limitations in Federal water protections. Water quality crises and the prevalence of impaired waters globally highlight the need for investment in the expansion of drinking water testing that includes public and private water systems, as well as community outreach. We provide justification including a case example to argue the merits of developing drinking water testing and community outreach programs that include drinking water testing and non-formal education (i.e., public outreach) regarding the importance of drinking water quality testing for human well-being and security. Organizers of drinking water testing programs should: (1) test drinking water quality; (2) develop drinking water quality databases; (3) increase public awareness of drinking water issues; (4) build platforms for improved community outreach; and (5) publish program results that illustrate successful program models that are spatially and temporally transferrable. We anticipate that short-term and intermediate outcomes of this strategy would improve access to drinking water testing, facilitate greater understanding of water quality and increase security through inclusive and equitable water quality testing and outreach programs.

Challenges to Learners in Interpreting Self as Other, Post COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted continuing constraints on the ability of students to interact with teachers and peers. Regarding this imposed segregation, what has not been considered is the effect of learners seeing self as other. With respect to augmentations of their body in interpersonal space by, (1) extending the body through witnessing themselves regularly in videoconferencing learning sessions, (2) isolating the body as a result of spending time apart from peers, social distancing at home, and (3) protecting the body through required mask-wearing where learners now consider who they represent in a mask, there are three important ways in which learners have felt unable to recognize themselves as they did pre-COVID-19. This migration from self to other, involving ingroup/outgroup distinctions, will be investigated from a number of perspectives—both sociological and psychological. Why the turning of self into other is problematic to the psyche will be discussed, as will the possible consequences for this ongoing lack of learner recognition long term, including focus on the new norms or embracing self-directed learning. Based on this analysis, the type of mentorship by teachers and parents that may be appropriate for helping learners contend with these changes will be recommended.

Challenges of Managing Information Security during the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2019 surprised information security practitioners in the organizations due to the change imposed on employees’ work routines. Employees were asked to work from home, and therefore changes were necessary to reduce information security risks actively. The abrupt change of work environments brought many challenges to the practitioners, which caused them to make decisions regarding organizational information security. This article aims to uncover those challenges through an ethnography study within an organization during the fourteen months of teleworking. On an overarching level, we found four challenges to be of concern: technical security, regulations and policies, employee awareness of security issues, and, finally, preparedness for the new work environment of teleworking. We believe that the challenges brought by the analysis will inspire discussions about the future of research and practice regarding information security management in case of disasters.

Online Meeting Challenges in a Research Group Resulting from COVID-19 Limitations

COVID-19 social distancing limitations have resulted in the utilization of hybrid online formats focused on visual contact among learners and teachers. The preferred option has been Zoom. The focus of one voluntary, democratic, self-reflective university research group—grounded in responses to writing prompts—differed. Demanding a safe space for self-reflection and creative questioning of other participants, the private Facebook group was chosen over video conferencing to concentrate on group members’ written responses rather than on visual contact. A narrative research model initiated in 2015, the 2020/21 interaction of the group in the year’s worth of Facebook entries, and the yearend feedback received from group participants, will be compared with previous years when the weekly group met in person. The aim is to determine the appropriateness of the online platform chosen compared with when the group met in person, pre-COVID-19, and suggest changes to improve future online group meetings. The results in relation to COVID-19 limitations indicate that an important aspect of self-directed learning related to trust arising from team mindfulness is lost when face-to-face interaction is eliminated with respect to the democratic nature of these meetings. With online meetings the new standard, maintaining trust requires improvements to online virtual meeting spaces.

Can Suboptimal Visual Environments Negatively Affect Children’s Cognitive Development?

There are indications that children born during the period of COVID-19 lockdown have cognitive development issues, without having been affected by the virus. We discuss here the idea that environmental deprivation—and, especially, the lack of appropriate visual stimulation—might be one source of these defects. This thought is in line with previous findings in children brought up in orphanages with poor environmental stimulation, hypothesizing that the minimalist architectural style prevailing for the last several decades is among the potential contributing factors. The process of eliminating organized complexity characteristic of organic forms may prove to be detrimental for humanity’s future, providing suboptimal environmental stimulation and opportunities for interaction during the critical stages of brain development.

Wise Ancestors, Good Ancestors: Why Mindfulness Matters in the Promotion of Planetary Health

The concept of planetary health blurs the artificial lines between health at scales of person, place, and planet. It emphasizes the interconnected grand challenges of our time, and underscores the need for integration of biological, psychological, social, and cultural aspects of health in the modern environment. Here, in our Viewpoint article, we revisit vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk’s contention that wisdom is central to the concept of planetary health. Our perspective is centered on the idea that practical wisdom is associated with decision-making that leads to flourishing—the vitality and fullest potential of individuals, communities, and life on the planet as a whole. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has illustrated the acute consequences of unwise and mindless leadership; yet, wisdom and mindfulness, or lack thereof, is no less consequential to grotesque biodiversity losses, climate change, environmental degradation, resource depletion, the global burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), health inequalities, and social injustices. Since mindfulness is a teachable asset linked to both wisdom and flourishing, we argue that mindfulness deserves much greater attention in the context of planetary health.

Experiences of Opening Up Communicative Spaces for Large-Scope Issues

The continuously changing world creates new challenges, large-scope issues, both at the community and the organizational level. Currently, sustainable development is among the key issues demanding organizational learning and new ways of operation. The paper looks for the potential of Scandinavian communicative-oriented action research (AR), applied in dialogue forums, to enhance learning and planning of integrative solutions to meet the needs of various actor groups. The paper links two intertwined AR lines of a Finnish work research institute to the contexts of classic and current AR discussion and their original social conditions in the early 1990s, when they were challenged by a severe recession. The characteristics of communicative spaces applied in the two cases are analysed qualitatively. The data, consisting of case reports, are reread and interpreted in a framework that concretizes Habermasian ideals of free communication. The elements of organisational learning and power embedded in the organisational positions of the participants dealing with large-scope societal issues are made explicit. Free communication and joint agreements of concrete plans require active agency that can be learned in a psychologically and socially safe communicative space where Habermasian lifeworld and system interact. The research shows the malleability of dialogue-based communicative spaces that can be applied in versatile social and organizational conditions. A future option would be a continuous dialogue applied in permanent dialogue structures.