Best paper award at OpenLivingLab Days

As a rather young and recent phenomenon, Living Labs create numerous challenges and issues to be tackled by both scholars and practitioners. It is necessary to add to both the theoretical and practical knowledge on Living Labs in order to advance the learning in this field. Within the OpenLivingLab Days a call for papers was launched to address both conceptual and empirical challenges and stimulate discussion on a number of Living Lab related topics.

As a rather young and recent phenomenon, Living Labs create numerous challenges and issues to be tackled by both scholars and practitioners. It is necessary to add to both the theoretical and practical knowledge on Living Labs in order to advance the learning in this field. Within the OpenLivingLab Days a call for papers was launched to address both conceptual and empirical challenges and stimulate discussion on a number of Living Lab related topics.

40 papers were submitted by researchers coming from all over the world. An international review panel led by Prof. Pieter Ballon (VUB of Brussels) assessed the articles and finally accepted 18 papers. These were presented during the Research Day of the OpenLivingLab Days and included into conference proceedings (online version is now available).

The paper presented by Yvonne Franz and entitled “Chances and Challenges for Social Urban Living Labs in Urban Research” won the Veli-Pekka Niitamo Prize for best academic contribution. The prize, awarded during the final World Living Lab Conference on September 5^th, was given based upon the initial reviewers marks but also the votes of all the participants collected in a co-creation manner during the event.