European Network of Living Labs ENoLL iVZW Pleinlaan 9 1050 Brussels Belgium
European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) contribution on the CoR consultation on the Commission Proposal on Establishing Horizon 2020 – the Framework of Research and Innovation (2014-‐2020) Committee of the Regions (CoR) is drafting an opinion on the Commission Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on "Establishing Horizon 2020 -‐ The Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-‐2020)", COM (2011) 809 final. Innovation has been placed at the heart of the Europe 2020 strategy as our best means of successfully tackling major societal challenges, such as climate change, energy and resource scarcity, health and ageing, which are becoming more urgent by the day. In this context, the CoR opinion on Horizon will have two main focus areas: • Addressing fundamental policy questions related to excellence, capacity-‐building, smart specialisation, regional research and innovation ecosystems, • Proposing concrete recommendations on issues affecting local and regional actors. These issues include, but are not limited to: public procurement; researcher mobility; access to complementary finance; research infrastructure; and strategies for R&D and regional development. The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) welcomes this consultation and the specific inclusion of the role of the Living Labs in strengthening the regional dimension in Horizon 2020 as follows: “In recent years, the rapidly expanded Living Labs initiative has also led to increased application of research to resolving practical, real-‐world challenges. In its opinions, the CoR has stressed the importance of strengthening such activity”. We especially would like to emphasise importance of the following aspects mentioned in the Committee of the Regions Working document: • Regional innovation platforms to be developed that would act as demand-‐based service centres and promote the use of international knowledge to implement the Europe 2020 strategy, smart specialisation and European cooperation to meet the interests of a given region.
European Network of Living Labs iVZW – Pleinlaan 9 – 1050 Brussels T: +32 2 629 16 13 - F: +32 2 629 17 00 - E: info@enoll.org - Legal Registr. N°: BE 0824 793 47
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Joint ownership: a region's activity is reflected in social innovations that achieve systemic changes to social structures and practices, and which are jointly produced and accepted by civil society, government and businesses.
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Regions to move towards open innovation, within a human-‐centred vision of partnerships between public and private sector actors, with universities and other knowledge institutions playing a crucial role, i.e. to modernise the Triple Helix concept. 1
Introduction We, the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), are proposing that the European Union consider a strategic opportunity to strengthen Europe’s unique way to conduct research, development and innovation (RDI). Living Labs propose all-‐inclusive, people-‐driven, open and collaborative ways through local open innovation ecosystems applying the European Partnership Model. Firms, academia, cities and public agencies collaborate and benefit from engaging people in creative innovation through Living Labs. Real-‐life ICT concepts, designs and processes engage demand side players – including public services and people as users and citizens – in open, human-‐centric and systemic RDI. Large-‐scale experimentation of the Living Lab RDI approach is envisaged to bring about innovations that leads to local and global entrepreneurship, new types of firms – even new social and economic enterprises – and the renewal of public and private services as well as local and global markets and industries. Above all, we believe it will increase the EU’s ROI on RDI funding by achieving effective and sustainable exploitation of research results, directly bridging R&D with the market. We thus propose to strengthen the Europe-‐wide open RDI ecosystem of the Living Labs community, institutionally, financially and in terms of its RDI infrastructure, including new avenues of research and experimentation in social and other sciences, thus having the potential to dramatically change the European innovation landscape in Horizon 2020. The process of gathering feedback from the Living Labs community involved consultations with stakeholders in various contexts both in Europe and throughout the world, starting with the public announcement of our intention to form the Open Living Labs PPPP driven by ENoLL at the Future Internet Week in Ghent (BE) in December 2010. The initial scoping paper of the proposal synthesizes the many contributions received to date, particularly on the part of ENoLL members who have contributed significant time and energy on a voluntary basis. The aim is to provide a summary of where we stand now in this process, in order to gather consensus and feedback among key institutional players and move forward towards a final draft. This document addressed to the Committee of the Regions (CoR) is a summary of this scoping paper. 1
WORKING DOCUMENT of the Commission for Education, Youth, Culture and Research On HORIZON 2020 (THE FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME FOR RESEARCH AND INNOVATION) EDUC-V-021
European Network of Living Labs iVZW – Pleinlaan 9 – 1050 Brussels T: +32 2 629 16 13 -‐ F: +32 2 629 17 00 -‐ E: info@enoll.org -‐ Legal Registr. N°: BE 0824 793 47
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Tackling the major challenges of our time Europe should have a strong open RDI-‐infrastructure in place that can tackle in a globally competitive way the major contemporary societal challenges such as energy efficiency, wellbeing, climate change, participatory democracy, and quality of life and turn them into entrepreneurial opportunities that renew markets, industries, public and private services and the overall societal dynamism in the frame of reference of the open society development. The proposed activities in this document also benefit from the participation of European cities, regions and people as citizens, users, or customers or members of developer communities and social networks. We believe that it is crucial to have a major impact on regional, societal, institutional and structural dynamism that also promotes the creation of new forms of social market mechanisms, new forms of social firms, and social entrepreneurship as well as socio-‐economic activities, new ways to promote participative democracy in practice and in the very frame of reference of open, transparent and trustful society development. Citizen-‐driven open innovation ecosystems (Living Labs) Living Labs are citizen-‐driven open innovation ecosystems in real-‐life settings in which innovation is fully integrated in the co-‐creative co-‐design processes for new technologies, products, services, and societal infrastructures. First developed by William J. Mitchell at MIT in 2003 “to study people and their interaction with new technologies in a living environment”, the Living Lab model was introduced to Europe by Nokia and adapted to the needs of ICT research and development. From there, the method spread, gaining a specifically European dimension as a user-‐centric development of the Open Innovation paradigm, based on the co-‐design of innovative ICT applications in local, often rural, communities. Over the past years, an increasing number of Living Labs have started operations throughout Europe, and they are forming a vibrant and still growing community. It is clear that more networking and support at the European scale is needed in order to fully leverage the potential of these locally embedded initiatives. A first turning point came with the Helsinki Manifesto launched by the Finnish EU Presidency in December 2006 as “an important step towards a new European innovation infrastructure”, which established the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL). From its initial structure of 19 Living Labs, ENoLL has grown through 5 yearly “waves” of membership to 274 Living Labs of which 36 are outside of Europe, covering six Continents. National Living Lab networks have been established in several Member States and regional networks in China, Latin America, and Africa. Each Living Lab brings different groups and sectorial associations into its partnership, involving often hundreds of SMEs in its activities and leading to the estimated 25,000 organisations affected by ENoLL activities overall. European Network of Living Labs iVZW – Pleinlaan 9 – 1050 Brussels T: +32 2 629 16 13 -‐ F: +32 2 629 17 00 -‐ E: info@enoll.org -‐ Legal Registr. N°: BE 0824 793 47
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The European Commission has supported ENoLL growth from the outset, recognizing that user-‐driven open innovation is an efficient way to deal with market fragmentation and obstacles, making the innovation process more efficient by bridging the gap between RDI and market entrance and supporting better and faster take-‐up of RDI results. These methodologies are rapidly becoming the new mainstream method of innovating as they enable small and medium-‐sized enterprises (SMEs) to create lead markets by overcoming existing barriers in local and regional markets in Europe. Living Labs often start their bridging in the applied research phase. Taking the step from technology prototypes for innovative and visionary users to evolving products for pragmatic and mainstream user, also called crossing the "pre-‐ commercial gap" or "chasm", is the major acting field for Living Labs as iterative user involvement adds significant value to the rapid prototyping and service/product development phases. Thus, Living Labs have in general an important role in filling gaps. They bridge the different gaps between technology ideation and development on the one hand, and market entry and fulfillment on the other. As flexible ecosystems, Living Labs can provide a demand-‐driven innovation approach by iteratively engaging all the key actors across the phases, and putting the user in the driver's seat. Living Labs and Digital Agenda going really local The Living Labs model includes citizen participation from the very outset of the creative process of technology development. As a result, evaluating aspects such as social and economic implications of new technologies has become more accurate. So the needs of users are better listened to and fulfilled. Through partnerships between citizens, businesses and public authorities, the Living Labs model allows people and industries to test tomorrow's best innovations in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). By placing the user at the center of the innovation lifecycle, and this in real life settings, the Living Lab concept is tightly linked to the first Europe 2020 priorities, and to the ensuing Digital Agenda for Europe aiming "to deliver sustainable economic and social benefits from a Digital Single Market based on fast and ultra fast internet and interoperable applications". The Digital Agenda is of great relevance to local and regional authorities given that they are amongst the main recipients of the agenda's recommendations and can be key drivers for its implementation. Moreover, the priorities of the Digital Agenda for Europe at local and regional level are prerequisites for the quality of life and social and economic activity of citizens and will stimulate more efficient and personalised public services as well as local businesses. Cities and regions must become real implementation fields for the Digital Agenda. Regions should be turned into innovation platforms for the strategic change. Europe needs to create local digital agendas to speed-‐up the optimal use of ICT through orchestrated local, regional and European collaboration. For this we need the new dynamic understanding of regional innovation ecosystems where public, private and third sector learn to operate together – with people in a new and creative mood. Good experience has been gained around Europe from the new open research, development and innovation platforms and methodologies by Living Labs mobilizing public private partnerships and encouraging especially people participations European Network of Living Labs iVZW – Pleinlaan 9 – 1050 Brussels T: +32 2 629 16 13 -‐ F: +32 2 629 17 00 -‐ E: info@enoll.org -‐ Legal Registr. N°: BE 0824 793 47
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On the Commission Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on "Establishing Horizon 2020 -‐ The Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-‐ 2020) We, the European Network of Living Labs, have identified following actions to be crucial in establishing the Horizon 2020 in order to strengthen the regional dimension of the upcoming Framework Programme for Research and Innovation for the years 2014-‐2020: -‐ Strategic Innovation Ecosystems of large-‐scale pilot initiatives aiming to stimulate the growth and development of Living Lab innovation ecosystems across a broad spectrum of sectors and at different levels of governance -‐ Enabling Actions in areas that support and reinforce the strategic innovation ecosystem and defined as i) knowledge creation ii) talent development, capacity building and job creation iii) new policy instrument iv) international cooperation v) dissemination and engagement Strategic Innovation Ecosystems pilots In order for Europe to reap the full benefits of user-‐driven open innovation, large-‐scale experimentation, testing, piloting and partnering is an absolute necessity. For this to become a reality, a European model should be developed and trialed where firms, academia, cities, regions and public agencies collaborate and benefit from engaging people in creative innovation activities through Living Labs. Real-‐life RDI-‐ designs and methodologies need to engage demand-‐side players (including corporations, public services and people in their as users, consumers, citizens, as well as innovators) into systemic innovation activities. We thus see that there is a need for series of large-‐scale initiatives with the aim of stimulating the development and growth of innovation ecosystems, linking the research Community to communities of citizens, businesses and public authorities across Europe. These pilots could take form in following ways: -‐ Cross-‐Thematic pilots: these focus on a specific social challenge such as health, energy, or the environment, linking specifically with on-‐going research in the relevant domains. The larger-‐scale IPs of this type will explore their field as a complex multi-‐level system ie at local, rural, urban, regional, national, EU, and global levels. -‐ Smart Places: these pilots involve networks of a specific territorial model – Smart Cities, Smart Rivers, Smart Regions, etc. – as integrated systems, with a strongly transversal approach with European Network of Living Labs iVZW – Pleinlaan 9 – 1050 Brussels T: +32 2 629 16 13 -‐ F: +32 2 629 17 00 -‐ E: info@enoll.org -‐ Legal Registr. N°: BE 0824 793 47
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respect to the sectors identified in the thematic pilots while at the same time building a bottom up “smart specialization” in the areas concerned. Specific emphasis will thus be placed on Local Digital Agendas linked to local and regional communities and development strategies such as ERDF regional OPs, EARDF LEADER+, Regions of Knowledge, building extensive networks tied to research systems in Europe such as the ERA and the EIT.
Enabling Actions We, the European Network of Living Labs see five specific strands of enabling actions, drawing from the on-‐going experience gathered from the strategic Innovation ecosystem pilots and accelerating the spread of innovation throughout the socio-‐economic fabric of European cities and regions: i) Knowledge Creation ii) Talent Development, Capacity Building, and Job Creation iii) New Policy Instruments iv) International Cooperation v) Dissemination and Engagement 1. Knowledge creation Knowledge creation on Living Labs involves the research required to develop emerging topics that are either not adequately dealt within other programmes or that require a deep multi-‐disciplinary (ie cross-‐ programme) and multi-‐stakeholder approach in order to produce relevant results for Living Lab ecosystems. The thematic areas identified are as follows: A. Understanding the User Experience -‐ Methods, techniques and tools to observe patterns of individual and collective behaviour, identify emerging usages (e.g. data mining) and support the assessment of individual and collective user experiences (e.g. value indicators) -‐ More holistic models of User Experience (e.g. extending the ISO description of User Experience) -‐ New observation instruments/systems with IoT (e.g. sensors, actuators, smart devices) B. Complex Innovation Systems: -‐ Complexity of Living Labs infrastructures and activities; new approaches for supporting mass collaboration with very large user communities (e.g. Fractal approach); managing the complexity of interdisciplinary constraints European Network of Living Labs iVZW – Pleinlaan 9 – 1050 Brussels T: +32 2 629 16 13 -‐ F: +32 2 629 17 00 -‐ E: info@enoll.org -‐ Legal Registr. N°: BE 0824 793 47
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Social innovation processes with ICT; crowdservicing, and crowdsourcing, behavior transformation, etc. LL Service Science, design and service Innovation, Design Thinking, multidisciplinary approaches in Art Design and Experience Design
C. Living Lab Governance -‐ Governance of open ecosystems, including IPR, privacy and responsibility, etc. -‐ Emergent business models and market dynamics -‐ Emergent role of the public sector D. Evaluation and Impact Assessment -‐ Concepts and assessment of Living Lab maturity: methods and models -‐ Territorial and spatial impacts of Living Lab innovation, implications for planning, programming, and territorial governance. -‐ Socio-‐economic and environmental impact assessment, implications for sustainable growth. 2. Talent Development, Capacity Building, and Job Creation With these actions, we wish to address the new challenges for education and learning for the capacities and skills required to support diffused Living Lab innovation ecosystems on the one hand, and the new learning and educational paradigms thrown up by the Living Lab approach itself on the other. The ultimate challenge is to link the new innovation ecosystems to job creation, which will probably remain as the main challenge in our societies over the coming years. Initially considered only as test beds, Living Labs are evolving into new learning environments. In parallel, more practice-‐based approaches such as the Learning by Developing model are built on development projects that are genuinely rooted in the working life, producing new practices and collaboration between lecturers, students and working life experts. Finally, there is a need for disciplinary convergence around a common language of innovation and its related competencies. Living Labs are gathering all kinds of methodologies on user-‐driven innovation and participatory design, action-‐research, and applied social sciences. On the other hand, Living Labs are trying to deepen the digital literacy approach towards what is called “ICT fluency”, defined as the capability to independently learn and use new technologies as they evolve. European Network of Living Labs iVZW – Pleinlaan 9 – 1050 Brussels T: +32 2 629 16 13 -‐ F: +32 2 629 17 00 -‐ E: info@enoll.org -‐ Legal Registr. N°: BE 0824 793 47
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Thus, we need to educate citizens not simply to use ICT but to be able to adopt and adapt ICT to innovation of new applications and services. The thematic areas identified are as follows: A. Innovative Learning Systems -‐ Living Labs as new learning environments where big corporations, SMEs, public administrations, research centers, young professionals or senior citizens, discover, listen, learn and teach each other how to innovate. -‐ Promoting the “democratization” (von Hippel) of innovation systems through models such as knowledge centres, citilabs, fablab, and medialabs. B. Action and Practice-‐based Learning -‐ Exchange of best practice through twinnings, cross-‐cultural links, barcamp approaches, etc. Problem-‐solving approaches, group working etc. -‐ Competence development through role playing, strong integration between teaching and R&D, etc. C. Skills and Capacities -‐ Disciplinary consolidation, skills and competence profiles, curricula development -‐ Joint Masters’ programmes, links with the EIT ICT KIC network. D. Learning Resources -‐ Building libraries of best practice, guidelines, etc. indexing and ontologies -‐ Social networking to capture Living Lab related knowledge 3. New Policy Instruments The most important EU policy instruments for R&D&I consist in providing co-‐funding to support collaborative trans-‐European partnerships implement a detailed working plan whose objectives correspond to policy objectives contained in an open Tender or Call for Proposals. While this system provides adequate guarantees of accountability and policy coherence, it lacks in agility and flexibility. The Living Lab approach instead requires open partnerships that are capable of bringing outside actors into multi-‐stakeholder partnerships, linking ICT R&D to large-‐scale initiatives that draw on external funding sources, and redefining operational goals and objectives in response to the evolution of user-‐centric co-‐design processes. European Network of Living Labs iVZW – Pleinlaan 9 – 1050 Brussels T: +32 2 629 16 13 -‐ F: +32 2 629 17 00 -‐ E: info@enoll.org -‐ Legal Registr. N°: BE 0824 793 47
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There is thus the need to devise and test new approaches to supporting innovation in the public interest, as well as promoting the uptake of best practice in public administrations at all levels. The areas of specific interest are identified as follows: A. Coordination of funding sources -‐ Bottom-‐up approaches to coordinate FP funding with other EU funding programmes, notably the ERDF the EARDF and EIB programmes such as Jessica, Jasmine, and Jaspers. -‐ Development of macro-‐regional innovation strategies supporting large scale Living Lab pilots bringing together objectives and actions from different DGs. -‐ Linking Living Lab funding with that of international bodies (UN, World Bank, etc). B. Innovative Public Procurement -‐ Application of Pre-‐Commercial Procurement procedures to “soft” innovation areas and the funding of Living Labs. -‐ Adopting Living Lab platforms such as social networking and crowdsourcing in adjudging public tenders and other aspects of procurement procedures. C. Private financing -‐ Innovative Living Lab approaches involving Venture Capital, Business Angels, Micro-‐Credit and other systems for promoting innovation through private capital. -‐ Exploration of innovative means for funding open network organisations through eg outsourcing financial management, etc. D. Crowdfunding and similar approaches -‐ Diffused fund-‐raising systems using social networking platforms -‐ Virtual currencies, time banks, Local Exchange Token Systems, etc. 4. International cooperation Traditionally International Collaboration in European projects has been devoted to the diffusion of results from European Projects to external, particularly third world, countries. In the Living Lab co-‐ design approach, however, the emphasis shifts to reciprocal learning and capturing the innovation potential from different cultures and world regions. There is a strong case for the benefits for Europe, European SMEs in terms of expanding markets for European expertise, innovation and business and support mechanisms such as the suggested action can European Network of Living Labs iVZW – Pleinlaan 9 – 1050 Brussels T: +32 2 629 16 13 -‐ F: +32 2 629 17 00 -‐ E: info@enoll.org -‐ Legal Registr. N°: BE 0824 793 47
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play a pivotal role in the promotion of greater internationalisation and help address perceived barriers to it. In addition, beyond the possibility of networking with existing knowledge and excellence abroad, this strand aims to capture and incorporate different preferences, needs and meanings of consumers in order to better adapt products and services to different cultures and regions. The international Living Labs in ENoLL offer the opportunity to provide services to (re)-‐define, localize and co-‐create ICT innovations in different parts of the world, making them truly universal. At the broader scale, this action aims to build the platform of international cooperation upon which European Living Labs can scale up to truly global systems, at the level at which the key challenges of today required being addressed. Other features specific to internationalization of Living Labs include: -‐ Special requirements common to international cooperation initiatives -‐ Links with relevant EU initiatives in INCO, ENPI, etc. -‐ The participating role for international organisations such as the UN and its agencies, the World Bank, etc. 5. Dissemination and engagement and exploitation This final action would be crucial in order to support the initiatives described in this document and to promote coherence and the effectiveness of the initiatives, with particular emphasis on the following activities: -‐ Marketplace/exchange platform between on-‐going projects and with actors external to the programme, including mechanisms such as challenges, crowdsourcing, etc. -‐ Operational network support and coordination -‐ Dissemination and engagement (media channels, workshops and events, etc.) -‐ Development of exploitation plans -‐ Recommendations for the future In order to ensure sustainability e and full exploitation of the knowledge produced from the actions, there is a need for interlinking the proposed enabling actions. This coordination and support action should aim at creating the much needed theoretical and methodological base for human and social science-‐based multi-‐disciplinary and methodological RDI in collaborative open ecosystems that also European Network of Living Labs iVZW – Pleinlaan 9 – 1050 Brussels T: +32 2 629 16 13 -‐ F: +32 2 629 17 00 -‐ E: info@enoll.org -‐ Legal Registr. N°: BE 0824 793 47
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engage wider civil society, academia, firms and public agencies to tackle major societal problems of our time. This action includes the promotion of different mechanisms of exploitation of the results developed by the network of living labs, such as transfer, commercialization, sustainability, accreditation or others, in order to bring the benefits to the end users and promote significant changes at micro or macro levels. The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) is the international federation of benchmarked Living Labs in Europe and worldwide. Founded in November 2006 under the auspices of the Finnish European Presidency, the network has grown in ‘waves’ up to this day. To this date, 5 Waves have been launched, resulting in 274 accepted Living Labs. The ENoLL international non-‐profit association, as the legal representative entity of the network, is headquartered in Brussels, at the heart of Europe. ENoLL has a board of 21 members with representation from academia, cities and industry from all over Europe. The Chair of the Board and President of the Association is Prof. Dr. Alvaro Oliveira. The ENoLL Secretariat, in charge of the network operations, is hosted by IBBT in Brussels. ENoLL is organized in working groups and thematic domains mobilizing the entire living lab community avoiding any fragmentation of efforts. Living Labs enable open and user-‐driven experimentation and co-‐creation in real-‐life test and experimentation environments, are the necessary complement to technical research, development and testing for Europe’s global RDI strategy. ENoLL provides direct access to almost 300 benchmarked facilities to perform user and ecosystem testing and experimentation of future and emerging systems and services on a large scale (www.openlivinglabs.eu) and have been characterised by the European Commission as Public-‐Private-‐People Partnerships (PPPP) for user-‐driven open innovation. 2
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http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/livinglabs/index_en.htm
European Network of Living Labs iVZW – Pleinlaan 9 – 1050 Brussels T: +32 2 629 16 13 -‐ F: +32 2 629 17 00 -‐ E: info@enoll.org -‐ Legal Registr. N°: BE 0824 793 47