Back

See Recommendations for  Living Labs

Living Labs

In general a Living Lab (LL) is a research concept. A Living Lab is applied for a user-centred multidisciplinary problem solving environment, that operating in a territorial context (e.g. city, agglomeration, region). In the AT6FUI context the territorial environment is e.g. rural areas in developing countries. LL integrate concurrent research for pubic health risk mitigation, because problem solving in the area of One Health needs different stakeholders and disciplines to assure a maximum impact on the community that is exposed to public health risks.

The best solution for Public Health Risk Mitigation from the perspective of one discipline might not be applicable in rural areas due to financial, social or technological constraints. Furthermore optimization of objective 1 performed by Discpline A1 or Stakeholder A2 might have a negative impact on a concurrent objective 2 that a Discipline B1 or Stakeholder B2. The  research concept of LL aims to establish a scientifically sound innovation process that is sustainable e.g. for rural areas in Developing Countries. It important to consider accessible and accepted resources for rural communities into account, so that the scientfic results are applicable in the future.

In the AT6FUI context the LL concept is based on a systematic user co-creation approach (e.g. of Farm Workers in El Salvador). As an example the  LL  research could incorporate the following innovation processes:

• (Technology) leverage Risk Mitigation options by using existing technology for a different field of application (e.g. apply a Smart Phone for low cost precision farming, to create an economic benefit by reduce amount of pesticides and an Health benefit by less exposure to agro chemicals).
• (Capacity Building) Create a risk awareness programme with model experiments for schools. This concept regards children in schools as multipliers of innovation processes.
• (Ecotoxicology) Determine the risk of agro chemicals for the rural population that is suffering from Chronic Kidney Disease,
• (OpenSource & Open Content) Is there existing Open Source Software or Open Content Material for  Public Health Risk Mitigation that can be applied and/or modified  in the territorial context (e.g. city, agglomeration, region)
• ....
  

The Open Community Approach applied on LL is helpful, so that the scientific results of the co-creation, exploration, experimentation and evaluation of innovative ideas can be applied in other scenarios or territorial contexts by modifying adapting the results. If the concepts and related technological artefacts remain free and open for other  real life use cases, the spreading of sucessful ideas is more likely. The use cases involve user communities, not only as observed subjects of the LL research but also as a driver for a sustainable development of creation. E.g.  farmworkers that are exposed to agro chemicals know which problem solving strategies are applicable under the rural working conditions. A useful mask and protective clothes might be unusable under tropical working conditions and increases the dehydration of the body.

In general the LL approach allows all involved stakeholders to concurrently consider both

• the global performance of a product, service or risk mitigation strategy from different disciplines,
• the potential adoption by users in the real life environment and the acceptance of rural communities of the innovation process (sustainability).

Differnences between LL and Testbed: A living lab is not similar to a testbed as its philosophy. A testbed uses a developed product, service or risk mitigation strategy e.g. in rural setting a evaluates the benefit, constraints and problems of the product or service.  In a LL users participate in the innovation process and do not test a nearly developed product just before it will be release to market.  This converts the role user from being traditionally considered as observed subjects for testing modules against requirements, into value creation in contributing to the co-creation and exploration of emerging ideas, breakthrough scenarios, innovative concepts and related artefacts.

Hence, for a Living lab in AT6FUI it is important to constitute an experimential environment, in which the farmworkers and communities that are exposed to public health risks are actively involve in the problem solving process and the Open Community Approach should serve as a facilitator so that politcal stakeholders can replicate successfully LL in other areas and less efforts for implementation, because the integrated research in the LL showed generic successful principles.