A participatory future: In Living Labs, ideas learn to walk

The trend is clear: whether in research or as a search engine keyword, the term "Living Lab" is mutating into a hot topic. And at the end of 2024, the German government even proposed a framework law for living labs to emphasise their importance as an "important instrument for promoting innovation and regulatory learning".

But what are these Living Labs all about? Martina Desole has been the director of the European umbrella organisation ENoLL (European Network of Living Labs) for around three years. Surprisingly, given the rather slow-growing notoriety of the term, this organisation has already been in existence for almost 20 years. At the beginning of January 2025, it reported that it had 163 active members in 37 countries, including far beyond Europe's borders, for example in Kenya. Luxembourg is not one of them. However, this does not necessarily mean that the Grand Duchy has completely missed out on this development.

No "guinea pigs"

The ENoLL definition of a living lab is somewhat cumbersome: they are "open innovation ecosystems in real-world environments based on a systematic approach of user-centred co-creation.They integrate research and innovation activities in communities and/or multi-stakeholder-based environments and place citizens and/or end users at the centre of the innovation process." It couldn't be any shorter, says ENoLL Director Desole, who joined us via video call from Brussels, but she does provide explanations. The most important: on the one hand, the research takes place in a real-life environment. "It means that we take research out of the laboratories and companies and into the streets, into people's homes." And on the other hand: "Real-world laboratories involve all participants in an iterative process, i.e. you don't just work with them once." The participants are therefore not simply test subjects who fill out a questionnaire once or simply provide data, but their feedback flows back into research and development. It is important that everyone involved knows from the outset what they can gain from the project: For science, this could be data and research results, for companies it could be input for the development of products or processes, for politicians it could be the identification of regulatory or funding requirements and, last but not least, empowerment for citizens, who are an integral part of the innovation process.