Recognising Invisible Dynamics: Cross-Cutting Patterns in Living Labs

DATE & TIME

1 October 2026, 15:45 – 17:15

ROOM

Peacock 1

TRACKS

TRACK 2: Living Labs for Policies, Governance, Collaboration and Innovation Ecosystems

TRACK 5: Living Labs Operations, Methods, Tools, and Impact

Description

The IPLL (Invisible Patterns in Living Labs) workshop offers an experiential approach to identifying cross-cutting dynamic patterns present in various contexts (nature, organizations, individuals, social systems).

Through a collaborative card-based game, participants explore, compare, and connect these dynamics to better understand the underlying mechanisms that structure collective innovation processes.

Agenda

Time	Item
15:45 – 15:55	Brief Introductions of Participants Context: complexity of Living Labs, difficulty in structuring them. Open question: “Why do initiatives rich in stakeholders and ideas sometimes produce few results?” Objective: “to create a level of cognitive engagement”
15:55 – 16:05	Card Distribution & Immersion Distribution of cards (participants + possible audience). Each card = a concrete situation. Instructions: “You have a situation. Your objective is to understand how it works, without trying to categorize it immediately.”
16:05 – 16:20	Free Exploration Participants circulate: free exchange, comparison of situations, identification of similarities. Objective: to elicit insights, to create movement and interaction.
16:20 – 16:35	Grouping by Similarity Participants must group together: “Form groups of situations that, in your opinion, function in the same way.” Result: emergence of clusters, beginning of spontaneous structuring.
16:35 – 16:55	Gradual Revelation of Patterns The facilitator introduces the patterns one by one. Examples: congestion, propagation, regulation, saturation, bifurcation, emergence, oscillation, misalignment. For each pattern: the groups involved express themselves, they explain their reasoning, group discussion. Key moment: realization that different systems are based on the same dynamics.
16:55 – 17:05	Living Labs Perspective Transition: “What if these dynamics are also those you observe in your projects?” Discussion: identification within their contexts, connection to their practices.
17:05 – 17:15	In-Depth Exploration Subgroup work: each group chooses a pattern. Addresses: Where does it appear in your context? What effects does it produce? How could it be better managed?
17:15 – 17:25	Debrief & Synthesis Group discussion: what was surprising, what makes sense, what is transferable. Final message: “Problems are not always different. They are often the same dynamics, in different contexts.”