Since the very first edition, when the OpenLivingLab Days were still called ‘Living Lab Summer School’, research on Living Labs has played a central role in our annual gathering. Over the years, the outlook and content of the research component of the OLLD has diversified and grown in quantity as well as quality. This year there will be no less than 42 research presentations, divided over 7 dedicated sessions, and 19 research posters.
It has been nearly 25 years after Living Labs first started appearing in academic literature and as a research concept. Nowadays, Living Labs are blossoming more than ever and this is reflected in the yearly increasing number of papers mentioning Living Labs. However, there is a growing divide between papers mentioning Living Labs only sideways and publications with Living Labs as their main topic. In 2024 and 2025, more than 6,000 papers mentioned Living Labs, whereas the number of papers with Living Labs as main topic has stabilised around 300 per year. This imbalance risks a dilution of the term in the academic literature and calls for more research into the increasing diversity of Living Labs and Living Lab approaches.
Giving a stage to researchers who study Living Labs as well as to Living Lab practitioners who want to investigate their practices has always been a priority for the OpenLivingLab Days. To this end, we also want to mention the distinction between ‘Living Lab research’ and academic research. Whereas the latter starts from research questions, triggered by previous research, followed by generating a clear research design and analysing the results in the light of the research questions, ‘Living Lab research’ is more linked to Living Lab practitioners that focus on the Living Lab process, making sure this results in relevant and innovative outcomes. In the past, this kind of research led to a large amount of Living Lab papers presented as ‘single case studies’ that remained too descriptive in nature. However, over the years this started to change as there was also more and more cross-fertilisation between academic researchers and Living Lab practitioners. Almost two years ago, this culminated in the establishment of ENoLL’s Living Lab research community which is open to all kinds of researchers dealing with and looking into Living Labs.
The various activities of the Living Lab research community, such as contributions to various conferences with different research traditions, setting up special issues in various academic journals, and organising online and offline working sessions on various Living Lab research topics clearly have an impact on the quantity and the quality of the research contributions to the OpenLivingLab Days.
Since the research community was officially launched in Timisoara in 2024, the number of submissions has nearly doubled with, for the second year in a row, more than 100 submissions in the categories Full Research Paper (FRP), Research In Progress (RIP) and Innovation Presentation (IPO). Compared to last year, we had a large increase in FRP and RIP submissions compared to the IPO, which also resulted in 17 accepted FRP, 20 RIP and 5 IPO. Next to these 42 presentations, divided over 5 research tracks with each their dedicated track chair, we also have a new record number of research posters (19) that will be on display during conference breaks and during a special networking session at the end of Day 2.
Summarising, we warmly welcome you to join one or more of the research sessions with contributions from the following 5 tracks:
Next to these 5 dedicated tracks, we also host a top contribution session which features the highest scoring FRP, including the still to be announced winner of the Veli-Pekka Niitamo award, and one mixed research session. If you are interested in the activities of the Research Community, watch out for one of the Garden Talks where there will be insights on the past, present and future of the community.
Dimitri Schuurman – Senior Research Strategist