Towards Third-Generation Living Lab Networks in Cities

Living labs are increasingly accepted as a prominent form of open innovation (e.g., Bergvall-Kåreborn et al., 2015; Brankaert et al., 2015; Guimont & Lapointe, 2016; Hakkarainen & Hyysalo, 2016). The roots of the concept may be traced back to Knight (1749), who referred to “living laboratory” as the elements and conditions of a body and an environment of an experiment. More recent studies apply living labs in heterogeneous fields and suggest that this phenomenon provides ample research opportunities (cf. Leminen, 2015). Following the definition of Westerlund and Leminen (2011), the present study views living labs as: “physical regions or virtual realities, or interaction spaces, in which stakeholders form public–private–people partnerships (4Ps) of companies, public agencies, universities, users, and other stakeholders, all collaborating for creation, prototyping, validating, and testing of new technologies, services, products, and systems in real-life contexts.” Although the literature on living lab is rich with various concepts, methodologies, research streams, and tools (Dutilleul et al., 2010; Følstad, 2008; Leminen & Westerlund, 2016, 2017), studies increasingly document the plurality of living labs using different conceptualizations (e.g., Leminen et al., 2012; Rits et al., 2015; Savelkoul & Peutz, 2017; Schuurman et al., 2016; Ståhlbröst & Lassinantti, 2015). Among them, Leminen and colleagues (2012) classify living labs as user-, enabler-, utilizer-, or provider-driven. Moreover, the outcomes of innovation activities are linked with the characteristics of the living lab, its driving party, and the selected strategy – and the living lab’s structure is that of an open innovation network (Leminen & Westerlund, 2013; Leminen et al., 2016; Steen & van Bueren, 2017; Veeckman et al., 2013). Similar to the notion of open innovation networks (Jarvenpaa & Wernick, 2012), living labs typically comprise different stakeholders, such as suppliers, customers and users, competitors, research units of universities, and other institutions and organizations, all of whom brings their interests to the collaboration and innovation. Many cities engage in diverse experimentation, innovation, and development activities with a broad variety of environments and stakeholders to the benefit of citizens, companies, municipalities, and other organizations. Hence, this article discusses such engagement in terms of next-generation living lab networks in the city context. In so doing, the study contributes to the discussion on living labs by introducing a framework of collaborative innovation networks in cities and suggesting a typology of third-generation living labs. Our framework is characterized by diverse platforms and participation approaches, resulting in four distinctive modes of collaborative innovation networks where the city is: i) a provider, ii) a neighbourhood participator, iii) a catalyst, or iv) a rapid experimenter. The typology is based on an analysis of 118 interviews with participants in six Finnish cities and reveals various ways to organize innovation activities in the city context. In particular, cities can benefit from innovation networks by simultaneously exploiting multiple platforms such as living labs for innovation. We conclude by discussing implications to theory and practice, and suggesting directions for future research. All the evolution we know of proceeds from the vague to the definite.