Co-Creation Dynamics in Urban Living Labs

Abstract

Citizens and urban policy makers are experimenting with collaborative ways to tackle wicked urban issues, such as today's sustainability challenges. In this article, we consider one particular way of collaboration in an experimental setting: Urban Living Labs (ULLs). ULLs are understood as spatially embedded sites for the co-creation of knowledge and solutions by conducting local experiments. As such, ULLs are supposed to offer an arena for reflexive, adaptive, and multi-actor learning environments, where new practices of self-organization and novel (infra-) structures can be tested within their real-world context. Yet, it remains understudied how the co-creation of knowledge and practices actually takes place within ULLs, and how co-creation unfolds their impacts. Hence, this paper focuses on co-creation dynamics in urban living labs, its associated learning and knowledge generation, and how these possibly contribute to urban sustainability transitions. We analyzed empirical data from a series of in-depth interviews and were actively involved with ULLs in the Rotterdam-The Hague region in the Netherlands. Our findings show five distinct types of co-creation elements that relate to specific dynamics of participation, facilitation, and organization. We conclude with a discussion on the ambivalent role of contextualized knowledge and the implications for sustainability transitions.

Digital Co-Creation to SupportTransformation of Open Public Spaces:Vilnius Living Lab Case

“…The Digital Co-Creation Index follows the formula: DCCI = P OS QI + DII + SRI 3 POS (Public Open Space) Quality Index (POS QI) connects the factors enhancing the social integration and communities' satisfaction with the public place, an action made possible through the use of digital technologies. The local communities using existing urban structures can actively shape the meaning of a place and the socio-spatial context [30]. The index has 14 variables divided in 4 categories, which are used to define the attractiveness of the public space.…”

Join the Park!

“…Differently put, the participation potential of local communities is not fully exploited because a large group of citizens remains inactive. Motivated citizens take on the role as catalysts in this context by encouraging engaged citizens to become more active [2,16,31]. This also increases the contrast between active and passive citizens, and contributes to a so-called participation divide.…”

Applying an RRI Filter in Key Learning on Urban Living Labs’ Performance

“…To date, the methodology has been used in practice with different emphasis on users' roles in finding solutions, prior definition of structure and processes and focus on exploration or exploitation of opportunities [1,18,19]. Furthermore, we mention differences in spatial and organizational scale: living lab methodology has been applied as small-scale physical experimentation spaces but also as networked spaces at regional scale that act as platforms for sets of experimentations using some sort of open innovation [20][21][22]. The common core of the methodology, however, has remained.…”

“…Urban living labs may include various stages in innovation, running from ideation and experimentation to upscaling and application in practice/market. In urban practice today, however, the methodology has often been adopted only in part, with emphasis on early stages like ideation, experimental design, demonstration and testing [8,9,22,[25][26][27][28].Despite urban living labs having become a popular tool in modern urban development and transition, assessments of their performance and required learning have lagged behind. While there are many studies of individual projects [29,30] there is a lack of systematic studies on the meta-level, meaning that factors influencing outcomes of urban living labs have remained largely unknown.…”

“…While there are many studies of individual projects [29,30] there is a lack of systematic studies on the meta-level, meaning that factors influencing outcomes of urban living labs have remained largely unknown. Exceptions are mostly (very) recent in time using (small) sets of case studies, among others published in handbooks on methodology and recent journal papers [22][23][24][25][26][27][28]31,32]. A further increase in systematic knowledge on performance (outcomes) is strongly needed because urban living labs are usually implemented in a highly complex and dynamic environment that is multi-actor, multi-function, and multi-scalar, which implicates a dealing with quickly changing challenges (tensions) and concomitant uncertainty in reaching aims [6,32].…”