Triggering policy innovation through living labs: addressing design and implementation deficits

Living Labs (LLs) have emerged as important instruments for fostering innovation inpublic policies, particularly at the local level, as they engage citizens, publicauthorities, research institutions, and private actors in collaborative experimentation.However, despite their rapid diffusion and theoretical promise, some empiricalstudies have questioned their effectiveness in generating tangible policy changes.This paper investigates the implementation dynamics of 24 LLs in various Europeancities and identifies the key factors that have limited their impact in producingpolicy innovation. These factors refer to problems stemming from the design andthe implementation stage and include misalignment between experiments andcitizens’ needs, constraints on iterative testing, role confusion within the quadruple-helix governance structure, and a limited capacity to promote learning throughwhich the implementation process can be adjusted. The study recommendsstrengthening citizen alignment, reorienting experiments toward policy changes,clarifying the roles of actors, and improving information gathering to promotelearning. Moreover, political commitment has emerged as a decisive factor for thesuccess of LLs.