Written by Arjen Wals, WUR

The Myth

Living Labs can be fully designed, prescribed and implemented.

The Reality

The assumption that Living Labs can be fully designed and implemented reflects a managerial logic that is ill-suited to complex, value-laden innovation processes. As research on wicked problems, complexity, and collaborative governance demonstrates, Living Labs are inherently emergent, requiring iterative learning, adaptive evaluation, and openness to surprise rather than prescriptive blueprints^1,2,3.

Successful Living Labs include multiple perspectives and values that focus on topics that are complex and highly contextual. Living Labs try to merge design, implementation and continuous evaluation. This always brings in elements of surprise, the unexpected and the intangible. Therefore, in guiding the development of Living Labs it is therefore critical to not provide prescriptive blueprints or steps to follow and implement but rather to provide guidance in connecting relevant stakeholders, developing a joint vision, a plan of action, indicators for desirable change and determining a strategy for monitoring and evaluation⁴.

References

1. Rittel, H. W. J., and Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169.
2. Patton, M. Q. (2011). Developmental evaluation: Applying complexity concepts to enhance innovation and use. New York: Guilford Press.
3. Schuurman, D., et al. (2016). Living Labs as innovation ecosystems. Technology Innovation Management Review, 6(2), 5–18.
4. van der Wee, M.L.E., Tassone, V.C., Wals, A.E.J. and Troxler, P. (2024), “Characteristics and challenges of teaching and learning in sustainability-oriented Living Labs within higher education: a literature review”, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 25 No. 9, pp. 255-277. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-10-2023-0465