Date & Time
1 October 2026, 14:00 – 15:30
Room
Galapagos
Chaired by
Teemu Santonen
Principal Lecturer, Laurea University of Applied Sciences
Teemu Santonen
Principal Lecturer, Laurea University of Applied SciencesDr Teemu Santonen holds a DSc (Econ.) degree in Information Systems Science. He has published over 90 scientific articles, including 25 focused on Living Lab methods, services, business models, innovation network orchestration, and case studies. Santonen has coordinated and participated in numerous international and national Living Lab and open innovation projects across various domains, including health and wellbeing, creative industries, circular economy and sustainability, pedagogical development, and forestry, agriculture, and fisheries. He has been an ENoLL Council member since 2022 and is co-leading ENoLL’s Harmonisation Working Group, which aims to reconcile differences and promote coherence in Living Lab practices. He also serves on the scientific panels of both ENoLL and the International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM), and is a former board member of the Finnish Strategic Management Society. Before his academic career, Santonen worked for over a decade as a development manager in leading Finnish financial, media, and ICT sector organisations.
Type of Session
Research Session
Description
Following a rigorous evaluation process, the OLLD26 evaluation committee has accepted the research papers for this year’s conference. All accepted papers engage with the conference theme, “Living Labs Impacts and Values for a Changing World,” and have been classified into five sub-tracks:
- Track 1: Living Labs for Grand Societal Challenges
- Track 2: Living Labs for Policies, Governance, Collaboration, and Innovation Ecosystems
- Track 3: Living Labs for Inclusive Soci(et)al Engagement
- Track 4: Living Labs for Business and Emerging Technology
- Track 5: Living Labs Operations, Methods, Tools, and Impact
Papers selected by the Evaluation Committee
- From participation to co-ownership? Stakeholder engagement in the Montado Living Lab
- The living lab as cumulative infrastructure: four mechanisms from a fashion and textile case
- From use events to value signals: A need–accuracy–duration framework for assistive technologies in Living Labs
- Living Labs as distributed configuration: Sensemaking, knowledge flow, and the role of university Living Labs in agri-food innovation
- Why Living Labs Fail: A Conceptual Taxonomy of Operational Failure Modes
- What drives innovation performance in urban Living Labs? Evidence from European cities and implications for practice
From participation to co-ownership? Stakeholder engagement in the Montado Living Lab
Abstract:
Living Labs (LLs) are increasingly promoted as collaborative platforms supporting innovation and sustainability transitions through stakeholder participation and real-life experimentation. However, participation does not necessarily evolve into shared ownership or distributed leadership.
This paper examines this challenge through the case of the Montado Living Lab (Portugal), a multi-actor initiative focused on regenerating the Montado agro-silvo-pastoral system. Drawing on qualitative document analysis of governance materials, meeting minutes, stakeholder surveys, and participatory workshop reports produced between 2024 and 2026, the study analyses stakeholder engagement through participation, co-creation, and co-ownership.
The findings show that while the Montado Living Lab successfully promotes participation and collaborative experimentation, the transition towards co-ownership remains limited, with coordination and initiative concentrated within the initiating research institutions. The paper identifies a “missing transition” between co-creation and co-ownership associated with centralized coordination, role ambiguity, and uneven stakeholder agency. The findings suggest that Living Labs should be understood not only as participatory platforms, but also as socio-organizational processes requiring governance arrangements capable of supporting distributed agency and shared responsibility.
Susana Filipe
CEO, Global Change and Sustainability Institute (CHANGE)
Susana Filipe
CEO, Global Change and Sustainability Institute (CHANGE)Susana Filipe is the CEO of the Global Change and Sustainability Institute (CHANGE), a leading R&D Hub of over 360 researchers focusing on the development of evidence-based governance and environmental policies. With 20 years of international experience across Europe and the Middle East, she has managed multidisciplinary teams in academia and the chemical industry. Since 2012, Susana has also served as a European Commission Expert, evaluating and steering Horizon projects. Within the Montado Living Lab, as an expert in circularity, resource preservation and valorisation, her work drives science-based public policies for soil health and agricultural systems, translating advanced R&D into evidence-based solutions for global sustainability challenges.
The living lab as cumulative infrastructure: four mechanisms from a fashion and textile case
Abstract:
Living labs are widely recognised as infrastructures for collaborative experimentation, yet the learning they generate often remains confined within single initiatives and dissipates once project funding cycles end. This contribution addresses that gap by asking how a living lab can move beyond the logic of projectification and operate as a cumulative infrastructure.
The study draws on the three-year trajectory of the Fashion & Textile Living Lab Too Cool to Go Wasted, developed as part of the MUSA Innovation Ecosystem (NRRP, 2022–2025) and now permanently based at Politecnico di Milano, Department of Design. Three initiatives are analysed as components of a single portfolio: a multi-actor circular fashion festival, a longitudinal narrative device on the people-garment relationship, and a toolkit for developing product-service systems for sustainable retail.
Evidence gathered through participant observation, artefacts, interviews and internal documentation allows the identification of four operational mechanisms of cumulative impact: physical space as active memory, recurring iterations, inter-organisational transfer and cross-initiative ambient learning. From these, the paper derives design orientations and policy implications for living labs seeking continuity beyond the project cycle.
Valeria Ianilli
Full Professor, Politecnico di Milano
Valeria Ianilli
Full Professor, Politecnico di MilanoValeria M. Iannilli is Full Professor at the Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, where she is a member of the School of Design. She is co-founder, together with Alessandra Spagnoli, of the Retail Experience Lab research group and of the Fashion & Textile Living Lab “Too Cool to Go Wasted,” where she serves as Scientific Director. Her research focuses on living labs as real-life experimentation environments and infrastructures for open innovation, co-creation, and transformative learning, as well as on consumption ecosystems and retailing as strategic contexts for sustainability transitions. In this framework, she leads research activities on the Su.Re (Sustainable Retail) platform, investigating how design-driven approaches can enable sustainable and circular consumption systems in fashion through stakeholder engagement, behavioural change, and product-service systems. Through these activities, she contributes to building collaborative ecosystems that support the adoption and scaling of circular practices across the fashion value chain.
Alessandra Spagnoli
Associate Professor, Politecnico di Milano
Alessandra Spagnoli
Associate Professor, Politecnico di MilanoAlessandra Spagnoli is PhD and Associate Professor at the Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano, where she serves as Faculty Member of the School of Design and member of the PhD Design School. She is a member of the Retail Experience Lab and the Fashion & Textile Living Lab “Too Cool to Go Wasted.” Her research focuses on design-driven processes for developing Creative and Cultural Industries (CCIs), exploring performative and narrative structures in retail design, and investigating technological impacts on omnichannel customer experience. Through her expertise in consumption and distribution processes, she examines how design-driven innovation can facilitate sustainable transitions in fashion and textile systems, with emphasis on relational experiences in normalising circular behaviours. Her work encompasses developing servitisation and circular economy models across fashion distribution and consumption ecosystems.
From use events to value signals: A need–accuracy–duration framework for assistive technologies in Living Labs
Abstract:
Assistive technologies are often evaluated at delivery or in short-term testing, although their practical value depends on sustained integration into everyday life. Longitudinal monitoring can address this gap, but research in Ambient Assisted Living, smart homes, telecare, and digital health indicates that acceptance varies with perceived need, sensing modality, informational detail, trust, control, health status, and experience. Such research can also be affected by selective recruitment and retention.
This Research in Progress paper presents Need–Accuracy–Duration (NAD) as a framework for proportionate longitudinal evaluation. Need specifies the stakeholder decision that warrants observation; Accuracy, the level of evidence required; and Duration, how long observation is needed and remains justified. Drawing on Gadamer’s account of health as characteristically receding from explicit attention, NAD treats observability as requiring justification rather than as an inherent methodological advantage. Sparse object-use events can then be contextualized as longitudinal value signals that support adaptation, investigation, continuation, or discontinuation.
Sebastian Günnel
Founder and Researcher, Alika System
Sebastian Günnel
Founder and Researcher, Alika SystemSebastian Günnel is a cognitive scientist and founder-researcher at Alika Systems and the affiliated Institute of Housing Research in Landshut, Germany. His work combines cognitive and clinical neuroscience, assistive technology, and health services research to support independent living and sustainable care at home. He previously conducted research at TH Rosenheim and the Center for Clinical Neuroplasticity at Medical Park Loipl, focusing on post-clinical care, neurological assessment, and sensorimotor function. His current research explores participatory Living Lab methods, privacy-conscious object-centered sensing, and evidence-based support systems for people and families navigating the transition from hospital or rehabilitation to everyday life at home.
Living Labs as distributed configuration: Sensemaking, knowledge flow, and the role of university Living Labs in agri-food innovation
Abstract:
Living Labs are described as user-centered, multi-stakeholder innovation ecosystems operating in real-life settings; however, studies show that Living Lab definitions and characteristics are enacted unevenly across cases.
This paper examines how stakeholders in a project-funded vertical farming set-up frame and enact the Living Lab concept at a publicly accessible space, and how those framings shape collaboration and knowledge exchange across a distributed configuration of actors. Based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with diverse actors with key roles in the project, we analyse (1) how “Living Labs” are interpreted in practice; (2) how collaboration configurations, drivers, and barriers shape knowledge flow and learning; and (3) what a constructive, modular support role for a university living lab could look like in future innovation projects.
The paper presents how stakeholder sensemaking of “Living Labs” becomes consequential for collaboration and learning infrastructure. It also argues for context-sensitive methodological support that helps align expectations, orchestrate collaboration, and enable knowledge exchange, without prescribing a single fixed participation model. The paper contributes to Living Lab research by conceptualising project-based technical Living Labs as distributed configurations in which spatial, testbed-like, public-facing, and methodological support functions may coexist but require deliberate translation work to become productive for collaboration and learning.
Senem Turhan
Senior Lecturer School of Innovation, Design and Engineering (IDT), Mälardalen University
Senem Turhan
Senior Lecturer School of Innovation, Design and Engineering (IDT), Mälardalen UniversitySenem Turhan is a design researcher and educator specializing in design thinking, sustainable product development, and user-centered research methods. She aims to bridge the gap between research insights and idea generation phases in the innovation process. Her work emphasizes sustainability, speculative reasoning, co-design, and user experience, integrating innovative tools and methods into education, research and practice.
Why Living Labs Fail: A Conceptual Taxonomy of Operational Failure Modes
Abstract:
Living Labs are largely perceived as frameworks for open innovation and user-centered co-creation. However, the existing literature is mostly focused on success stories. When failure does occur, it is often treated as an isolated incident rather than as a phenomenon worth exploring.
This research-in-progress paper proposes a conceptual framework that categorizes operational failure conditions in Living Labs. The framework is developed through conceptual synthesis of existing Living Lab research, case-based evidence, project outputs, and practitioner reports. Five main categories are identified: 1) Stakeholder disengagement, 2) Governance ambiguity, 3) Sustainability breaking point, 4) Methodology-context misalignment, and 5) Impact legitimacy deficit. For each, the paper describes the trigger condition and the early-warning signals to watch for. The taxonomy is presented as both a practical diagnostic tool for practitioners and a foundation for failure-informed research.
The next phase of the research will empirically validate and refine the taxonomy through semi-structured interviews with Living Lab practitioners across Europe, including representatives of both active and discontinued initiatives.
Dr. Abdolrasoul (Rasoul) Habibipour
Associate Professor in Information Systems, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, and Managing Director of Botnia Living Lab
Dr. Abdolrasoul (Rasoul) Habibipour
Associate Professor in Information Systems, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, and Managing Director of Botnia Living LabDr. Abdolrasoul (Rasoul) Habibipour is Associate Professor in Information Systems at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, and Managing Director of Botnia Living Lab and educational program leader at LTU. His research focuses on participatory design, user engagement, co-creation, and Living Labs, with a particular interest in ethics, responsibility, and inclusive innovation. Rasoul has led and contributed to several international research and innovation projects and has extensive experience in developing and studying innovations in real-life settings.
What drives innovation performance in urban Living Labs? Evidence from European cities and implications for practice
Abstract:
Urban Living Labs (ULLs) are increasingly recognised as important environments for experimentation, co-creation, and innovation in European cities. However, empirical evidence on the factors associated with their innovation performance across different urban contexts remains limited. Existing Living Lab research is still dominated by qualitative and case-based approaches, which makes it difficult to identify broader patterns relevant for research, practice, and policy.
This Innovation Presentation reports results from the authors’ original survey shared with managers of ULLs located in European cities and affiliated with the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL). The study examines whether ULL innovation performance is associated with three groups of factors: city ecosystem capabilities, ULL internal innovation capacity, and multistakeholder collaboration intensity. These dimensions capture the enabling conditions of the urban environment, the organisational capacity of the ULL, and the breadth and intensity of collaboration across key stakeholder groups. Innovation performance is understood as the introduction of new or significantly improved goods, services, and processes.
The presentation will focus on the main findings and their implications for research, practice, and policy, and will open a broader discussion within the ENoLL community on how to strengthen the conditions supporting higher innovation performance in Urban Living Labs.
Joanna Karas
Researcher, World Economy Research Institute at SGH Warsaw School of Economics
Joanna Karas
Researcher, World Economy Research Institute at SGH Warsaw School of EconomicsJoanna is a researcher at the World Economy Research Institute at SGH Warsaw School of Economics and an innovation expert working across sectors and countries. She has several years of experience in innovation-oriented projects that connect research with practical implementation, stakeholder engagement and ecosystem development. Her interests include Living Labs, innovation ecosystems, cross-sector collaboration and the transformative role of arts and culture. She is currently finalising her PhD at SGH, where her research focuses on the determinants of innovation performance in Urban Living Labs in European cities.