The role of living labs in open innovation

In recent years, we have witnessed a change in the factors that provide competitive advantage. Decades ago, the managerial mantra was growth, and later productivity. Today, however, thinkers and academics seem to be focused on innovation. While policies that support growth are different than those which foster productivity, both are related to input and capital factors. By contrast, innovation is more closely related to intangibles, knowledge and experimentation. Moreover, with the overall stock of knowledge increasing dramatically and its accessibility enhanced by technologies, IT is causing a shift in the way innovation is managed in companies towards what we call a model of open innovation. With this shift comes the need for new services and the need to adapt public policies to this new environment. In this paper, we explore the function of one of these emerging services, living labs, arguing that they play a dual role of supporting experimentation in real contexts and intermediating between companies, academia, public institutions and users. We further describe how living labs actively promote projects and contribute to technology transfer, while at the same time providing a framework for public policy implementation in the context of a user-centric knowledge society.