CO-LLABS
From AMI@Work Communities Wiki
| Roberto Santoro Project Coordinator (email) ESoCE-NET, Rome, Italy |
| Hans Schaffers Scientific Coordinator (email) ESoCE-NET, Netherlands |
- 21-23 June 2010, CO-LLABS workshop at ICE 2010 on Living Labs Fostering SME Innovation in Regions, Lugano, Italy
- 27 January 2010, CO-LLABS - PACA workshop on Regional Living Lab Policy for the Benefit of SMEs, Brussels
- 26 January 2010, Workshop on Smart Cities call CIP ICT-PSP, Brussels
- 1-3 July 2009, FIRE week, Lulea, SE
- 22-24 June 2009, 15th International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising (ICE 2009), Leiden, NL
- 19-20 March 2009, High Level Event on ICT for Energy Efficiency (ICT4EE), Brussels, BE
- 14 January 2009, Living Labs Information Event, Brussels, BE
- 15 January 2009, Living Labs Community Networking and CIP/FP7 proposals development, Brussels, BE
- 16 January 2009, Open System of Living Labs Communities Foundational Meeting, Brussels, BE
CO-LLABS stands for: "Community-Based Living Labs to Enhance SMEs Innovation in Europe". It is a Thematic Network in the ICT-PSP program (CIP) under theme 4.1 Sharing Experience on ICT Initatives for SMEs. CO-LLABS starts 1st of April 2008 and has a 28 month project duration until 31 July 2010.
The over-all objective of the CO-LLABS Thematic Network is to achieve a European-wide adoption of ICT-based Living lab services and practices to allow SMEs to improve their innovation capabilities and processes and become part of “open innovation” environments.
To that end the CO-LLABS Thematic Network will identify and develop specific pilots for Living labs based SME innovation in domains such as e-health, e-business and e-inclusion. The work will be grounded in thorough exchange and understanding of current Living labs practices and experiences and strengthened by creating better insight in successful business models of future SME-oriented Living labs. The Thematic Network will support the interaction with policy makers at regional, national and European level to establish consensus on the Living labs approach as a cornerstone of European innovation policies, in particular at the regional and cross-regional level.
The underlying motivation of this proposal is that Living Labs allow the provision of services to SMEs that would otherwise not be available to them. Focus is on how SMEs can be involved in Living Labs in the best way, in particular to create “open innovation” business models, and on sharing experience among Living Labs initiatives and beyond as regards SME benefits, user acceptation and co-creation of Living labs practices. CO-LLABS Thematic network will support interaction with policy makers at regional, national and European level to create consensus on the Living Lab approach as a cornerstone of the European Innovation Policy.
[edit] News from CO-LLABS
[edit] GNSS Living Lab Prize: a 10.000 euro opportunity!
The GNSS Living Lab Prize (supported by the GNSS Supervisory Authority through the GAINS project has been launched during the Galileo Application Days 2010 event, held in Brussels on 3-5 March 2010.
The GNSS Living Lab Prize calls for developers and users, engineers of research institutes, and development departments but also from new ventures, to submit proposals for GNSS-related products and services ready to be tested and ideally implemented in suitable Living Labs.
Submissions of the ideas to the prize shall focus on the following themes:
health, energy and media.
Each theme will produce a winner, whose owner will be awarded with 10.000 EUR.
As part of the prize, the winning ideas will undergo to an experimentation in those Living Labs, who will demonstrate to offer the best testing infrastructure, the most suitable users communities and the most attractive implementation and exploitation potential.
The opportunity for Living Labs is that both financial and consulting support will be available for selected Living Labs to facilitate and support the implementation of winning ideas in Living Labs context.
The timetable for the GNSS Living Lab Prize is as follows:
- 3-5 March 2010: Official launch of the European Satellite Navigation Competition;
- 1st May to 31st July 2010: Ideas submission;
- 1st August to 30 September 2010: Ideas evaluation;
- 3rd week of October 2010 (TBC): Award ceremony in Munich;
- 1st December 2010 to 31st January 2011: Submission of proposal from Living Labs, for adopting and implementing the winning ideas;
- 1st of April 2011 (TBC): Start of the trials in the selected Living Labs.
Take this opportunity! Visit www.galileo-masters.eu and discover how to participate.
Additional information can be also found at www.gsa.europa.eu.
[edit] 21-23 June 2010: CO-LLABS workshop at ICE 2010: "Living Labs Fostering SME innovation and Entrepreneurship in Cities and Regions"
The final CO-LLABS workshop will take place at the ICE 2010 Conference in Lugano. During the first day, 21st June, CO-LLABS will host a scientific session related to Living Labs, Entrepreneurship and SME innovation. A call for papers will be issued on short term. On the second day, 22 June, the actual workshop will take place. More information will follow soon.
[edit] 27th January 2010: Workshop on Regional Living Lab Policy for the Benefit of SMEs
This workshop was organised jointly by CO-LLABS and PACA. The aim of this workshop was to discuss the role of regional innovation policies and living labs concepts to foster SME innovation in regions. The living labs concept, built upon principles of user driven open innovation, has the potential to enrich the existing set of instruments for regional innovation policy. In order for the living labs concept to become effectively integrated as part of the set of regional innovation instruments, regional policies must adapt and itself innovate, in order to take advantage of its opportunities and guide its adoption.
Presentations at the workshop:
[edit] 26th January 2010: Workshop on Smart Cities call CIP ICT-PSP
This workshop was organised by ENoLL, supported by CO-LLABS, Eurocities and APOLLON. The workshop was divided in 2 main sections: Networking starting in the morning and Co-creating in the afternoon. The networking sessions started with 3 presentations. The first one, presented by Mr. Roberto Santoro, focused on the opportunity of co-creating "smart" commons through the Open System of Living Labs Community. Mr. Dave Carter then showed the role of Smart Cities as Creative Cities emphasizing challanges and opportunities and the need of a real citizen engagement. In the last presentation Mr. Pieter Ballon offered an overview of the just started APOLLON project (Advanced Pilots of Living Labs Operating in Networks) aimed at demonstrating the positive impacts of cross-border domain-specific Living Lab networks. After the introduction, the networking session was led by Mr. Hans Schaffers where many participants were given the opportunity to present and discuss their experience, with a view towards pilot B proposals in the CIP call. Based on that session, thematic domains for CIP proposals were identified and elaborated in parallel group discussions. Particopants worked jointly on proposals based on ideas to make cities "smart", innovative services to be delivered by Smart Cities based on future internet technologies and existing platforms made available by involved Cities and LLs. The discussion resulted into an initial definition of potential CIP Call 4 proposals.
[edit] 16th October 2009: New CO-LLABS report is ready !
The 3rd period Technical Report D3.2 from the CO-LLABS project is ready. This report presents the results of the CO-LLABS project from April 2009 until end of September 2009. The report is partly based on contributions to and discussions at the 2-day CO-LLABS workshop during the ICE 2009 conference in Leiden, 23-24 June 2009. Additionally, CO-LLABS has participated to the FIRE and Living labs conference in Lulea July 1-3, 2009 through workshops and presentations (partners ESoCE Net and CDT were the main organisers of the respective events). These events and discussions also led to indentifying some new perspectives for the mission of CO-LLABS which are being discussed in this deliverable. Over-all focus of this report is on: 1. Methodologies for living lab innovation, 2. Good practices of living labs as instruments to support SME innovation, 3. New and emerging opportunities for pilots on living labs supporting SME innovation, 4. Living labs business models, 5. Policies, strategies and initiatives for living labs stimulating SME innovation, and 6. Next phase of the European Network of Living Labs.
[edit] 23-24 June 2009: 4th CO-LLABS workshop, Noordwijk, The Netherlands
The 4th CO-LLABS workshop has taken place on 23rd and 24th June 2009 in The Netherlands. The workshop was part of the three days 15th International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising (ICE 2009), named “Collaborative Innovation: Emerging Technologies, Environments and Communities”. The 2-day CO-LLABS workshop was aimed to bring together policy representatives, researchers, innovation agencies and living labs initiatives to discuss policies, strategies, innovation instruments and innovation initiatives to boost rural and regional innovation through Living Labs approaches. The workshop focused on the evaluation of the benefits of the living lab approach for regional, SME oriented innovation and was aimed to identify the conditions to be established in order to integrate living labs successfully into regional innovation policies and benefiting SME innovation. In this chapter all relevant information related to the 4th CO-LLABS workshop is reported.
[edit] 1-2 July 2009: CO-LLABS at the FIRE and Living Labs conference, Luleå, Sweden
The FIRE and Living Labs conference was held on 1st and 2nd July 2009 in Luleå, Sweden. The conference, in association with the Swedish EU presidency in autumn 2009, has been organized by the European Commission DG INFSO, the FIREworks project, the CO-LLABS project and the Centre for Distance Spanning Technology at Luleå University of Technology, in cooperation with the FIRE portfolio projects and the European and Swedish Network of Living Labs. Some of the living lab business models presented in the 4th CO-LLABS workshop have been discussed and analyzed more in detail and CO-LLABS members have further elaborated the basis for the community sustainability after the formal project duration. Moreover, the ENoLL 4th Wave has been announced, offering the opportunity to all organized partnerships with recognized capability to perform open user-centric research and innovation to became ENoLL members. The call will open on October 2009 and close on January 2010 and the 4th wave process will be principally very similar to the 3rd wave process.
[edit] Objectives of the CO-LLABS Thematic Network
CO-LLABS stands for: "Community-Based Living Labs to Enhance SMEs Innovation in Europe". It is a Thematic Network in the ICT-PSP program (CIP) under theme 4.1 Sharing Experience on ICT Initatives for SMEs. CO-LLABS starts 1st of April 2008 and has a 28 month project duration until 31 July 2010.
The over-all objective of the CO-LLABS Thematic Network is to achieve a European-wide adoption of ICT-based Living lab services and practices to allow SMEs to improve their innovation capabilities and processes and become part of “open innovation” environments. Thus, this proposal addresses Work Programme Objective 4.1b “to improve the capacity of businesses and in particular SMEs to benefit from ICT-based innovations in their products and services”.
To that end CO-LLABS Thematic Network brings together a selection of Europe’s most advanced Living Labs on the one hand and regional SME-innovation oriented organisations on the other to exchange practices of LL support services, and identify and develop specific pilots in domains such as e-health, e-business and e-inclusion. The work will be grounded in thorough understanding of current Living labs practices and experiences and strengthened by creating better insight in successful business models of future SME-oriented Living labs. The Thematic Network will support interaction with policy makers at regional, national and European level to establish consensus on the Living labs approach as a cornerstone of European innovation policies, in particular at the regional and cross-regional level.
The underlying motivation is that Living Labs provide services to SMEs that would otherwise not be available to them. Focus is on how SMEs and their business partners can be involved in Living Labs in the best way in order to collaborate in open innovation, and on sharing experience among Living Labs initiatives and beyond as regards SME involvement in co-creation of Living labs practices.
[edit] Activities and outcomes in the Thematic Network
The foreseen activities and outcomes in the CO-LLABS thematic network include the following:
- Best practices on how Living Labs and Experience research services are supporting SMEs innovation: identification, evaluation and exchange of such practices within and across European regions.
- Pilots development of SME-oriented Living Lab initiatives in domains of e-business, e-inclusion, e-health, and stimulating the collaboration among Living Labs, innovation agencies and business stakeholders to develop these pilots.
- Living labs business models and governance structures development for networks of Living labs supporting SMEs.
- Network mobilisation, exploitation and dissemination to create an active community stimulating SMEs for open innovation and exchange experience in how to use the living labs concept for SME innovation.
- Policy initiative development to stimulate Living labs, Innovation Agencies and Research organisations to work with SMEs on open innovation.
- Elaboration of a joint action plan to establish self-sustainable pilots and ensure viability of the CO-LLABS network after its formal project duration.
[edit] Consortium and Partner Network
The CO-LLABS consortium brings together a synergetic combination of:
- Reputed research organisations devoted to ICT-based innovation and used to working with business. Their role is to, in close collaboration with Living labs and SME organisations, analyse and exchange practices, develop ideas for Living labs services, and generate ideas for LL pilots;
- Advanced Living Labs across Europe. Their role is to exchange and validate concrete experiences of SME innovation practices and services to offer to SMEs for open innovation;
- Experienced SME Innovation Organisations and agencies. These organisations will establish the communication and exchange with SMEs in their region and country and enable cross-country collaboration.
The CO-LLABS consortium covers 20 partners from 13 countries, including 3 New Member States. It is grounded strongly in collaboration between Living labs, Research organisations and Agencies stimulating SME innovation in these countries. All, rooted in regions, have a strong interest in cross-border innovation.
The CO-LLABS consortium is supported by 14 Support Partners (Innovation Agencies, Living Labs and Authorities), who are already closely working with the listed CO-LLABS Consortium partners in their country or region, and who have offered to strengthen the CO-LLABS impact. Additionally, CO-LLABS is supported by 15 Living Labs from the second wave of the European Network of Living Labs. Expected impact of the Thematic Network: The CO-LLABs Thematic Network aims to achieve a European-wide adoption of IC-based living labs services and practices to allow SMEs to improve their innovation capabilities and processes. To that end CO-LLABS Thematic Network brings together a selection of Europe’s most advanced Living Labs on the one hand and regional SME-innovation oriented organisations on the other to identify and develop specific pilots in domains such as e-health, e-business and e-inclusion.
CO-LLABS key partners have built up a close relationship with the ENoLL (European Network of Living Labs, www.openlivinglabs.eu) and the Living Labs Open Innovation Community (AMI@Work Family of Communities, which has 2000 members, www.ami-communities.eu). ESoCE-Net, coordinating CO-LLABS, is chairing the AMI@Work Family of Communities. This will enable CO-LLABS to build up and expand its Community Network very soon and very effectively. The CO-LLABS Community Network initially consists of the core CO-LLABS consortium partners, the CO-LLABS Support Partners, and the interested parties from ENoLL and AMI@Work.
[edit] Expected impact of the CO-LLABS project
Expected impacts can be identified at the level of individual Living Labs and at the level of the Network of Living Labs operating in a co-ordinated and synergic fashion. Major expected impacts of the Thematic Network of Living Labs are the following:
- The CO-LLABS Thematic network results will enable public authorities and major stakeholders in the EU to implement mutually interoperable Living Labs systems, thereby providing an innovation platform to European Industry, and economy of scale for Living Lab services
- Improved competitiveness of European businesses and particular SMEs by providing them with the tools to access the innovation services at a regional and European scale
- Development of markets for innovative ICT solutions and services for supporting the Innovation and the Open Innovation process
- Identification of large scale pilots demonstrating the Living Lab approach and the synergy, scalability offered by the European network
CO-LLABS addresses the needs of SMEs through the formation of regional clusters of Living labs, SME-oriented Innovation Agencies and research organisations. The SME-oriented Innovation Agencies will establish - and be responsible for - the relation with SMEs in their region. CO-LLABS does not work directly with individual SMEs, but Innovation Agencies and also Living Labs will do so. COLLABS will not itself establish Living Labs, it investigates how local and regional partners can work together in order to improve the regional innovation system and support SMEs. In doing so, SMEs will benefit from the project in multiple ways, in particular:
- Pilots will be developed to initiate and validate open innovation, where SMEs can participate. Pilots will demonstrate strategies how SMEs can participate in Living Labs.
- Policy initiatives will be developed to stimulate Living labs, innovation agencies and research organizations to work together with SMEs on open innovation.
- Business models will be explored governing collaboration between Living labs, SMEs and research organizations. This will benefit the provision of services to SMEs by Living labs in an indirect way.
The significant Living labs movement which has been growing in the last year since the launch of the European Network of Living Lab by the Finnish Presidency, on November 20 2006, provides a reasonable assurance of reaching the expected impacts. In particular there has been an involvement of the Portuguese European Presidency, accepting 32 new Living Labs during the Second Wave Living Labs event, held in Brussels on October 17, 2007. And there is already a plan for a 3rd wave of new Living Labs accessing the network during the spring 2008 in Slovenia. The momentum is significant and the CO-LLABS network results can sustain the expectations by identifying and preparing for large scale pilots demonstrating the Living Lab approach and the synergy, scalability offered by the European network. Pilot cases will have a strong potential of actually involving large number of users and also some distinct potential for SMEs, as co-creators, providers of innovative solutions and as main beneficiaries of the innovation.
[edit] Consortium Overview
- ESoCE Net, Italy - Roberto Santoro, Hans Schaffers
- BIC Lazio, Italy - Roberto Giuliani, Alessandro Ristori, Manuela Giacobbi
- BIBA , Germany - Karl Hribernik, Pierre Kirisci
- Mobile Technology Research Center, Germany - Ulrich Glotzbach, Michael Boronowsky
- Fundació i2CAT, Spain - Artur Serra, Inéz Garriga
- ESADE, Spain - Jonathan Wareham, Esteve Almiral
- Centre for Distance-Spanning Technology, Sweden - Annika Sällström, Mikael Börjeson, Michael Nilsson
- Fachhochschule Vorarlberg, Austria - Jens Schumacher, karin Feurstein
- WISTO, Austria - Joachim Heinzl
- Living Lab Leiden, The Netherlands - Bernhard Katzy
- CETIM, The Netherlands - Olivier Rerolle
- Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology, Belgium - Jo Pierson, Bram Lievens, An Jacobs
- Helsinki School of Economics, CKIR, Finland - Seija Kulkki, Petra Turkama
- Art and Design City Helsinki Ltd., Finland - Kari Halinen
- University of Maribor e-Living Lab, Slovenia - Joze Gricar
- INTELI - Inteligência em Inovação, Portugal - Miguel Pinto, Kathrin Calhau
- Alfamicro - Sistema de Computadores, Portugal - Alvaro Oliveira
- University of Szeged, Hungary - Vilmos Bilicki, Tibor Gyimóthi, Patricia Frittman
- Wirelessinfo Living Lab, Czech Republic - Karel Charvat, Petr Horak
- Silicon Sentier, France - Marie Vorgan-Le Barzic, Yannick Inrep
[edit] Join CO-LLABS! Supporting Partners Overview
Living Labs, Innovation Agencies and Research Organizations active in Living Labs can support the CO-LLABS project.
For expressing your intent to support CO-LLABS
click here to download the Letter of Support 
The following organisations have already expressed their intent to support CO-LLABS:
- 3D Living Innovation
- 83 Degrees South
- Airport Living Lab
- Amsterdam Innovatie Motor, Netherlands
- BIG Bremen, Germany
- Botnia Living Lab, Sweden
- CENT Ardèche Living Lab
- CENTER FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
- Centre for Sustainable Technologies
- CIDEM, Spain
- City of Helsinki Board, Finland
- CONNECTED NOTTINGHAM
- Copenhagen Living Lab, Denmark
- COVA DA BEIRA OPEN 2 INNOVATION
- Creative Knowledge Center Living lab, Kecskemet, Hungary
- Creative Knowledge Centre
- Dialogic Living Lab Utrecht, Netherlands
- Digital Lifestyles Centre, UK
- DIMES Association, Finland
- Eco Living Lab, Portugal
- eHealth Living Lab
- ESRIN-ESA, Italy
- EUTERTO EUROPEAN TERRITORIES OF TOMORROW LABORATORY
- evolaris Mobile Living Lab
- FIAPAL Living Lab
- FIR, Research Institute for operations management at RWTH-AachenUniversity
- Fondazione Istituto sui Trasporti e Logistica, Italy
- Forest Management Institute, Czech Republic
- FORMIT Roma
- Forum Virium, Finland
- Frascati Living Lab
- GREATER PARIS REGION LIVING LAB
- Halmstad Living Lab
- HumanTech LivingLab
- IBBT iLAB.O, Belgium
- ICT Technology Network, Slovenia
- Integrative Usage Lab
- ITL – Living Lab for Logistics
- Lahti Living lab, Finland
- Laurea Living Lab Network, Finland
- LENS
- LEVIER
- Lighting Living Lab
- Living Lab for Design and Services
- Living Labs Minho, Portugal
- Manchester East Serve, UK
- Media Network Cluster Levier, France
- Municipality of Leiden, Netherlands
- Northern Rural Urban
- Open2inovation llan
- Segovia Tech LL
- SITRA, Finland
- Slovenia Automobile, Slovenia
- Small Business Center Helsinki School of Economics, Finland
- TLL - Territorial Living Lab for the Sicilian Region
- TRAIL - Technologies for Rurality, Ageing andIndependent Living Laboratory
- VDC - Virtual Dimension Center Fellbach
- VINNOVA, Sweden
- Virtual Dimension Center, Germany
- Virtual Professional Community for Automatic Control & Robotics & Computer Science
- Wear@it
- Wray Community LLAB
- Zaragoza Living lab, Spain
