Welcoming the EC’s investment on Future Internet, the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) offers to act as entry point for user involvement in new experiments

On October 28, 2009 the European Commission published a Communication on the Future Internet addressing the ambition to develop world-leading internet-powered infrastructures for domains such as healthcare, energy and traffic management. To meet this challenge, a budget of €300 million additional EC funding is allocated for the coming three years in the form of Future Internet Public-Private-Partnerships (FI PPP).

On October 28, 2009 the European Commission published a Communication on the Future Internet addressing the ambition to develop world-leading internet-powered infrastructures for domains such as healthcare, energy and traffic management. To meet this challenge, a budget of €300 million additional EC funding is allocated for the coming three years in the form of Future Internet Public-Private-Partnerships (FI PPP).

The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) welcomes the Commission’s initiative for the concrete implementation of Future Internet technologies in cities, regions and countries. ENoLL stresses that the Commission’s objective of “smart infrastructures” that bring economic and social benefits to all citizens is not likely to be reached through an exclusively technology-driven process.

This is why living labs, that enable open and user-driven experiments and tests, are the necessary complement to technical testbeds for Future Internet technologies. Living labs are open platforms to involve user communities as contributors of innovations. They provide real-life user testing facilities offered by local Public-Private-Partnerships.

ENoLL currently coordinates 129 benchmarked European living labs, and has recently opened a call for new applicants. Together, the ENoLL members support the “Innovation Lifecycle” for all actors in the system: end-users, SME´s, corporations, public sector and academia (http://www.openlivinglabs.eu).

To help making the Commission’s initiative into a success, ENoLL commits to provide the European entry point for user involvement in Future Internet experiments. Starting today, every interested party can contact the new ENoLL entry point [email protected]. This will provide direct access to the 129 members’ competencies related to the Future Internet. ENoLL is also establishing domain-specific networks of Living Labs, in conjunction with the European Apollon project (www.apollon-pilot.eu).

These networks (in domains such as healthcare and energy efficiency) will allow innovators, and especially SMEs, to perform user tests of Future Internet systems and services on a European scale. With all of this, ENoLL hopes to mobilise the entire living lab community and to avoid any fragmentation of efforts. Further info The Commission press release related to its

Communication on Future Internet can be consulted here. The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) is a community of Living Labs with a sustainable strategy for enhancing systemic innovation. ENoLL aims to support co-creative, human-centric and user-driven research, development and innovation in order to better cater the human needs. ENoLL is a business- citizens-government partnership contributing to the creation of a new European Innovation System.

It was established by the EU coordination action project CoreLabs and the network was launched in November 2006 under the Finnish EU Presidency. The network has grown in “waves” up to 129 member Living Labs.