Include 2011 : The role of inclusive design in making social innovation happen.

Include is the biennial conference held at the RCA and hosted by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. The event is directed by Jo-Anne Bichard and attracts an international delegation

A fourfold typology of living labs: an empirical investigation amongst the ENoLL community

Living Labs can be seen as a means to structure user involvement in innovation processes. However, in this rather young research domain, there is no consensus yet regarding supporting theories and frameworks. This has resulted in a wide variety of projects and approaches being called ‘Living Labs’, which leaves a clear conceptualization and definition a task in progress. Within this research paper we propose a fourfold categorization of Living Labs based on a literature review and validated by an empirical investigation of the characteristics of 64 ICT Living Labs from the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL). The four types are Living Labs for collaboration and knowledge support activities, original ‘American’ Living Labs, Living Labs as extension to testbeds and Living Labs that support context research and co-creation with users

University library as a living lab: innovating with students

Ubiquitous and pervasive technologies are part of everyday life, including the portion of it that has something to do with the university libraries: all students use personal mobile technology and all books have embedded sensors. This paper describes three years long experience with student-lead innovation of student-oriented university library services. Stu-dents, as library users themselves, have a potential to initiate changes in the existing practices, or offer novel technological solutions based on ubiquitous and pervasive technologies that are easy to adopt and use for this user group. Within the project described in the paper, the library was established as a living lab for a student-lead innovation. At this stage, the innovators are recruited among interaction design students. The approach shows very promising results, some of which are showcased in the paper

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

This paper presents a case study of public space transformation in Vilnius through community-wide participation employing Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) where the bottom-up community initiatives lead to the conversion of the Post-Soviet factories area into a multifunctional open space. Digital technologies enable collective methods of creativity, such as co-creation, in resolving complex urban problems, but also provide novel opportunities for designing inclusive, attractive and responsive public places. This case study employed the Composite Digital Co-Creation Index methodology which evaluates variety of aspects in the transformation of open spaces to co-creative systems: sociocultural contexts, multi-stakeholder perspective, diversity in needs, incentives for the participation of different groups and cooperation capabilities. The framework was built according to theoretical discussion related to co-creation, urban planning, collective intelligence theories with insights on ICT applications in generating public value. The empirical data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, survey, digital monitoring, and other secondary materials such as reports, etc. The framework provides a useful approach to explore initiatives of digital co-creation as it allows to identify potential areas of improvement

Bridging the gap between Open and User Innovation? : exploring the value of Living Labs as a means to structure user contribution and manage distributed innovation

In nowadays society, organizations are struggling with the practical implementation of ‘distributed innovation’, or the fact that organizations need to reach outside their boundaries to tap into distributed sources of knowledge to enhance their innovation processes. Within this PhD, we will look at a specific approach, promoted and supported by the European Commission, that tries to facilitate and manage distributed innovation processes through a Public-Private-People partnership with a central role for the end-user: Living Labs. Following Almirall & Wareham (2011) and Leminen et al. (2014), we define Living Labs as an organized approach (as opposed to an ad hoc approach) to innovation consisting of real-life experimentation and active user involvement by means of different methods involving multiple stakeholders, as is implied in the Public-Private-People character of Living Labs. However, there are two main problems associated with these Living Labs. First problem, in terms of Living Lab practice and activity, is that there seem to be too many initiatives, without enough noticeable results or impact. This is linked to the second problem, dealing with Living Labs theory. To this date, there have been a lot of Living Lab publications, but there is no consistency in terms of connection to larger research paradigms and frameworks, and there is a lack of papers with a significant academic impact as well as research clearly illustrating their value. Therefore, from a theoretical perspective, we have investigated both the Open and User Innovation paradigms and demonstrated that Living Labs are an embodiment of both, although there are only few references to these literature streams in the current Living Labs literature. From a practice perspective, we have illustrated that Living Labs are rooted within various European predecessors such as cooperative design, social experiments and ‘digital cities’, but that out of the 345 affiliated members to the European Network of Living Labs, at least 40% is currently inactive. In order to further evolve Living Labs as a concept and to allow a better conceptualization, we developed a three layered model, consisting of a macro level (the Living Lab constellation), the meso level (consisting of a Living Lab innovation project) and the micro level (consisting of the different methodological research steps). Moreover, within a multiple case study analysis of 4 Living Lab constellation, 21 Living Lab innovation projects and 107 methodological research steps, we have been able to demonstrate that the concepts gathered from the Open Innovation literature could be used to analyze the macro level, whereas the concepts from the User Innovation literature could be used on the micro level. Through co-creation, both levels merge on the meso level, resulting in useful contributions to the innovation in development. Therefore, we concluded that Living Labs are able to govern innovation networks and to structure user participation in concrete innovation projects

Drafts From Sociology of Design. Introduction to Discussion

Praca recenzowana / Peer-reviewed paperThe following publication is a collection of texts on the contemporary meaning of design, the changing in roles of designers and cultural and social expectations described in the broad cognitive perspective. Although this topic raised in the field of sociology quite recently, the complexity of the phenomenon, its manifestations, forms and ways of preventing provoked the debate on the field. Hence, presented volume is prepared by the researchers, whose interests have been provoked by needs of sociological inclusion in the debate in the area dominated so far by theorists and practitioners from the field of art and related disciplines. Through the publication of this book we would like to explore the area associated with the use and perception of design in a broader social context and try to find the answers for few questions: • What is the role or roles for design in modern society? • How design can be use in solving problems connected with social and cultural changes? • What are the examples of the application of design in processes of social and cultural change? • What are the boundaries of socially responsible design? • How to involve society in the process of socially responsible design