A Living Lab in Edinburgh University?

1
A Living Lab in Edinburgh University?

• James Stewart
• The Scottish Living Lab Initiative

2
What is a Living Lab

• An infrastructure of people and technology to
  engage potential users/customers in innovation
  processes to improve success rates for goal such
  as social and economic development
• Engages users in natural everyday settings
• A LL bridges gaps between producers and potential
  users at all stages of innovation processes
• Living Lab is not based on single projects - it
  is an infrastructure of people and technology
• In the living lab the users are the creators

3
Origins and Examples

• Original terms Abowd (1999) Living Educational
  Environment. at GIT
• Aware Home authentic yet experimental setting,
  we are building a home that will serve as a
  living laboratory for ubiquitous computing in
  support of home life Kidd at al (1999)
• MIT PlaceLab a 'microscope' to carefully study
  people and their interaction with new
  technologies in a living environment "William J.
  Mitchell (2003)

4
Botnia Living Lab

• Centre for Distance-spanning Technology, CDT
  Luleå University of Technology
• Open testbeds for mobile services
• Over 6200 (Oct.?06) lab members.
• Advanced wireless infrastructure
• 30 full-scale technology and application projects
• 50 end-user investigations.
• open, user-centric innovation encompasses the
  expertise, methods and tools

5
iCity, Hassalt,Belgium

• i-City is the largest testing ground for mobile
  applications in the world. i-City turns Hasselt
  and Leuven into one big lab By doing this, i-City
  can already develop the applications of tomorrow
  on a large scale, and test them in lifelike
  situations.
• Flemish Government,Microsoft, Telenet, Siemens,
  Concentra, Fujitsu-Siemens and Research Campus
  Hasselt,IBBT

6
Key Ideas

• User-engaged Innovation
• Open Innovation
• Failure reduction in innovation
• Focus on non-technical factors in innovation
  success
• Services and products
• Multi-disciplinary
• Infrastructure
• Services to industry, research and public sector
• Public-Private-Academic partnerships

7
Open Innovation

• Opening innovation processes to include
  suppliers, customers, and competitors.
• Engaging in users and stakeholders at all stages
  of innovation process
• Extended to end user populations too
• Experience of Open Source processes and Web 2.0
• Tackles the issues of socio-technial innovation
  in use
• Aimed at reducing innovation failure by paying
  more attention to social

8
Open Innovation 2

• Building on user innovation practices which
  always occur
• Regards potential users as a co-creators, rather
  than subjects
• Social Learning and learning economies
• but
• Need open platforms and open processes
• Need to open up and involve intermediate
  stakeholders
• Flexible approach to IPR
• Key role for user intermediaries - Living Lab is
  a new form.

9
Tools for engaging with potential user communities

• User/Consumer Panels
• Market surveys
• User studies
• Participatory development
• Proof of concept studies
• Trials
• Social Experiments

10
Lab services

• Domain research
• E.g. common research in eHealth, urban life,
  creative industries, Social Inclusion, business
  services etc
• Living Lab
• People
• Service platform
• Methods and results
• Living Lab Studio
• Participative design/ co-creation

11
Types of Living Labs

• Narrow but sizable communities of expert
  users
• Whole bounded populations
• Living Labs for technical service development
• Living Labs for non-technical research using
  service platform
• Living Labs for experimental interactions - e.g.
  in business clusters

12
Three levels of the SLL Project
Business services and commeralisation
Living Lab communities and methods
Stakeholders Network and Management
Technical Service Platforms and Tools
13
The SSL Initiative

• Edinburgh, Dundee, Napier, ECA, GSA, Glasgow
• Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Systems Symposium,
  Wireless Innovation
• Plan a network of Living Labs, based on sector,
  expertise and location
• Focus on wireless/mobile platform, but not
  exclusively.
• Common methods, shared service platforms and
  commericalisation processes
• Common Roadmap
• Demonstrators/ pilot Living Labs
• Common knowledge and shared research

14
ENoLL

• 51 living labs. Set of existing collaborations
  bidding for money
• Access to EC Funding - in FP7 and beyond
• Cross European Partnerships to offer services
• Knowledge and experience of more advanced LL
  projects
• Partners
• Other LLs Brussels, Trento
• Firms Nokia, operators, etc

15
LL Services

• Access to
• Core knowledge and research base in themes
• The LL for thematic research, testing, idea
  generation, service generation, etc
• The Living Lab studio
• This is organised around a set of core themes and
  expertise areas. E.g. urban life, chronic
  illness, tourism, education
• Subscriptions, and project based relationships
• Partners and clients are usually expected to
  contribute to the infrastructure of the Living
  Lab

16
Edinburgh University

• How can Edinburgh University engage with Living
  Lab concept?
• Engagement with industry-focused living lab work
• Student and Staff as pool for Living Lab
  innovation
• Service to students and staff - learning by
  development
• Development of an Open platform for innovation
  using services and tools accessed by wireless
  devices
• Development and application of methods.
• Aid in Technology and Knowledge Transfer
• For education, for student and staff life
• As focus of Living Lab work in the city

17
UE Strengths

• Medicine and Public Health
• Informatics
• Education
• Innovation and Law
• Knowledge and technology transfer

18
Project XYZ

• Scottish Enterprise supported Wireless Testbed
• Multi-system Wimax, wifi, 2G,3G cellular
• Supported by JANET
• Nodes based in Universities
• Opportunity to work on services, rather than just
  test the technology.
• Deadline Spring 2008

19
Research Projects

• Include Living Lab methods in specific research
  projects
• Branded Meeting Places
• Museums and Second Life
• Reality
• Multidisciplinary collaborations
• Design, Social science, Informatics, Humanities,
  Education

20
Governance

• Project Governance
• Letter of Intent
• Project centre
• Living Lab Governance
• Draw on work from ENoLL
• Experience from existing multi-stakeholder
  projects

21
Finance

• Investment
• In setup research
• In creating organisation
• Sustainable business models
• In SLL Project, or in individual LLs
• Long term business model
• Potential exit strategies

22
Tasks

• Build stakeholder network
• Identify existing projects that could be basis of
  Living Lab work
• E.g. in eHealth, social care
• Identify key elements that need funded, and
  obtain funding

23
Tasks 2

• Develop generic open service platform for
  wireless-internet
• Or other platform
• Engage with SMEs, public sector and major firms
  to identify business needs
• Find strategic partners
• Develop Living Lab methods in trials and pilots
• Develop business model
• Develop metrics for innovation measurements
  (hard)

24
Specific Funding

• Research Councils
• EPSRC
• AHRC
• ESRC
• Other
• NESTA
• Scottish Enterprise
• Commercial Sponsors
• Scottish Executive
• EC FP7
• University

25
What next for LL in Edinburgh?

• Goals
• Interest
• Expertise
• Funding