Foreword

The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) celebrated its 12th birthday in 2018. ENoLL was established in 2006 during the Finnish Presidency of European Union, promoting multistakeholder and citizen driven innovation. Twelve years later, this vision was integrated in a key document: The Manifesto for Innovation in Europe -manifestoforinnovationineurope. org-, published after an editing process which included 51 people and different types of organisations. Foreword by ENoLL Chairperson

In the context of the Digital Transformation, The Manifesto provides an updated vision and highlights a list of specific lines for actions in a scenario of profound economic and societal transformations; a scenario in which innovation-led growth generated by SMEs and societal changes occur hand in hand. The EU citizen is now empowered thanks to the universal open access to knowledge, and new EU infrastructures are needed to facilitate an efficient integration of citizens in the EU knowledge society. But beyond this, The Manifesto represents a live, Open co-creation process, Open to all the Citizens, Open to the World, in order to guarantee that no one is left behind in this profound transformative process.

We had the chance to deepen this approach during the summer of 2018 in our Open Living Lab Days Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. I had the honour to be elected as ENoLL Chairperson in an event in which Michael Møller, UnderSecretary-General of the United Nations and the Director General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, shared with us a vision in which the Challenges that we are facing as Humankind cannot be tackled by one organisation alone anymore. The Sustainable Development Goals have become a universal framework, a global roadmap that applies to all facets of society, to all people and institutions, to all regions of the world and to every single individual. More than ever, the multi-stakeholder and citizen-centric perspective (a human-centric perspective) is known and accepted. “THE MANIFESTO REPRESENTS A LIVE, OPEN CO-CREATION PROCESS, OPEN TO ALL CITIZENS, OPEN TO THE WORLD, IN ORDER TO GUARANTEE THAT NO ONE IS LEFT BEHIND IN THIS PROFOUND TRANSFORMATIVE PROCESS”

Now, the implementation aspects, the development of the “how”, including the consolidation of sustainability and business models for living labs, appears as one of the most relevant challenges to tackle. We contributed to this with 23 projects collected in the report of the Living Lab Project Award Competition, with the 35 submitted scientific contributions, which explored the Network’s methodological multiplicity, and with 29 Open Workshops which constitute one of the most valuable assets of our Community: its potential of development through knowledge sharing. In this sense, the ENoLL Learning Lab Program was consolidated as a reference point for capacity building in living lab methodologies and tools, and this approach will be strengthened in the future in order to help the living lab Community building stronger foundations.

It is an actual priority to orchestrate the new EU innovation ecosystems based on complementary interaction of science, citizens, society and business. In the years to come new areas of expertise and jobs will emerge and disappear, the interdisciplinary boundaries will blur, stakeholders borders will fade, and this will ultimately trigger the mentioned profound transformations in the ways that citizens live their lives. Living Labs have played the role of connectors and enablers in their interaction with universities, research centres, public administration and companies, and have provided evidences for their transformative power. At European Institutional level, relevant actions have been taken in Collaboration with the European Commission, such as the contribution of ENoLL to the Open Science Policy Platform (OSPP) through Prof. Tuija Hirvikoski for the development of the Open Science and Open Innovation paradigms. ENoLL also played a fundamental role in the European Social Innovation Competition, in which 739 applicants from 39 European countries in 2018 proposed the urgent systemic changes for scaling up the impact of innovative socio-economic initiatives. With the objective of strengthening this collaboration at European Institutional level, the ENoLL Chairperson appointed Wim De Kinderen (City of Eindhoven) as ENoLL vice-Chairperson for the development of actions in the context of transition to the new Horizon Europe Framework Programme. I invited Win to share his reflections about this in the following pages.

ENoLL has consolidated its ecosystem at a global scale, as well. Beyond a market for products and services, there is latent global market of values in which the citizen-centric approach, the empowerment of everyone to innovate, is a key element. The Network has strengthened its links in Asia with countries such as Korea, contributing not only to different joint events, but establishing new partnership and welcoming new membership applications. The same occurred for Africa and America. We also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Australian Living Labs Innovation Network, an achievement paving the way to the development of exciting scenarios for collaboration during 2019.

Nowadays, we are facing a present of opportunities, also tensions and uncertainties, but indeed exciting changes. Classical fields of action for living labs such as Smart Cities and IoT, Health and Wellbeing, Green Economy and Energy, are now being complemented with promising emerging initiatives in Rural Living Labs, City Living Labs, Social and Policy Labs. The Living Lab Community, with its strong action-oriented nature, is placed in a privileged position to tackle this exciting moment that we are living and contribute to shape a better future for all.