Living Labs – a multi-level network
Working together in living labs: A multilevel network approach towards maximizing impact.
BACKGROUND/HISTORY AND CONTEXT OF THE WORKSHOP
In 2014 the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS) started the first of many area-based living lab (called ‘AUAS fieldlabs’) in collaboration with the district municipality, introducing an area-based innovation approach to local challenges like unemployment, poverty or a healthy neighborhood (Lab Amsterdam, Majoor et al., 2017). For each challenge, the living lab brought together local entrepreneurs, NGOs and citizens. This multilevel structure was devised to connect change at local policy level to innovation at a practical service level. In addition to the area-based living labs, the AUAS co-founded several new living labs varying in size, subject and scale, which all share characteristics of so-called system innovation initiatives. They consist of a cohesive set of experiments by a multi-actor innovation network to contribute to a process of sustainable structural change in dominant structures, relations and practices while interacting with the system.
MAIN AIM / OBJECTIVE
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
We offer examples from our own practice and support participants in gaining hands-on experience to evaluate their own living lab as an example of system innovation, and design an appropriate network strategy. • Participants of the workshop will gain knowledge of relevant theories and practices on system innovation and social network analysis; • Participants get an illustration how a multilevel social network approach can be applied through the example of living lab “House of skills”, a particularly interesting case example as an initiative for system innovation towards a skills-oriented labour market in the Metropolitan Area of Amsterdam; • Participants will apply knowledge as a means to assess how to create impact within their own living labs by applying a multilevel network perspective.
BRIEF OUTLINE / METHODOLOGY
The workshop has a participatory approach and starts with a brief introduction followed by hands-on practical sessions. The workshop comprises a short introduction to network theorizing and system innovation applied to the context of living labs. We will share our experience of collaboration in Amsterdam-based urban living labs. The example ‘House of Skills” is illustrative for a multilevel approach as it brings together the business community, trade organisations, employee and employer organisations, knowledge institutes, education and regional administrators, collaborating toward system innovation. We will explain how we make choices concerning the organisational structure of our living labs in order to contribute to (labour market) system innovation. We discuss in small subgroups what participants can learn about their own living lab from this viewpoint and what kind of network strategy could work in order to support the system innovation. This is followed by a final reflection.
LINKS
Workshop Facilitators
Elke van der Heijden
Researcher
Elke van der Heijden
ResearcherElke van der Heijden is a researcher and developer in the interdisciplinary research program Urban Management at the Amsterdam University of Applied Science (AUAS). She combines her current work as a project leader and researcher for the ERDF / ESF project House of Skills, with a PhD project on collaborative learning processes in long-term innovation processes. In recent years at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, she was one of the driving forces behind the development of the Fieldlab Methodology. Field labs are area-oriented and locally anchored learning and experimenting environments for the approach of metropolitan tasks.
Anna de Zeeuw
Senior Researcher
Anna de Zeeuw
Senior ResearcherAnna de Zeeuw (Phd public administration), is a senior researcher and program manager at the AUAS, lectorate Management of Cultural Change and research group Urban Management. She acts as leader of various fieldlabs, with the application of action research. The theme of this is cooperation between formal and informal organizations in a metropolitan setting. She has a PhD in quality of public services. She also has training and extensive practical experience as a business strategy consultant.
Julie Ferguson
Senior Researcher
Julie Ferguson
Senior ResearcherJulie Ferguson (PhD, business administration) is a senior researcher in the interdisciplinary research program Urban Management at the AUAS. Julie’s main research interest is knowledge-intensive organizing and social innovation, from a social network perspective. She is presently project leader for an interdisciplinary project aimed at collaborative governance among diverse stakeholders of Amsterdam municipality as an ‘urban commons’, and is researcher on the European-funded ‘House of Skills’ project. She was previously an Assistant Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, has published extensively in international scholarly journals and acquired numerous research grants in the domain of organization sciences and public administration.