Living Labs as Enablers for Collaborative Innovation – Exploring Success Factors and Impacts

The starting point of this study is a broad review of the literature related to collaborative innovation and innovation partnerships. Based on this review, the concept of Living Labs was identified as a proper enabler of regional collaborative innovation among a variety of stakeholders. The aim of this study was to identify practices for successful collaboration of Living Labs through a comparative case study in five European countries, i.e. Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden. As a result, we clustered the success factors into four categories: 1) shared vision, 2) interaction between partners, 3) actors, resources, and activities 4) operational model and supporting structures. These success factors are a prerequisite for impacts of the collaboration. Furthermore, the second phase of the study deepened the understanding of impacts of collaborative innovation through a participatory case study with 16 Finnish city cases. As a practice-oriented comparative case study, there was a limited number of theoretical contributions. Thus, the linkages among different concepts were demonstrated both in the literature and in practice.