Generalization as local and translocal embedding: interrogating governance and deconstructing democratization in living labs

As societies scramble for ways to surmount current sustainability challenges, living labs have emerged as hopeful hybrid institutions to facilitate collaboration. In addition to embedding innovations locally, living labs are also expected to generate transferable or scalable solutions and thus achieve “translocal embedding.” This raises questions about how far existing living lab initiatives attend to and address the dual challenge of local and translocal embedding and in what ways relevant stakeholder groups are included or excluded from scientific research and technological development toward transformative change. Based on a literature review and case-study analysis, this article distinguishes three types of living labs: “solution optimizers,” concerned with the application of technological innovations and their optimization in terms of efficiency, safety, security, and usability; “solution tailors” addressing technology implementation and regulatory framework conditions; and “solution co-creators” fostering participatory approaches toward socio-technical innovation. The findings show that across these three types of living labs, the number of contextual factors and the associated degree of complex interactions between experimental design and experimental outcomes increase alongside the number of actively involved stakeholder groups. Tracing processes of local and translocal embedding in the three types of living labs, this contribution reveals dynamics of stakeholder inclusion and exclusion. Notably, civic actors are often excluded from decision-making processes related to technology appraisal and commitment at the translocal scale. Instead, they can provide feedback as end-users or engage in participatory processes to pave the way for the local embedding of sustainable practices and technologies in and through living labs.