LivingLab SHANGHAI is an educational platform based on the open approach and environment of Sino-Finnish Centre, located in Tongji University. It promotes open innovation for generating social construction of knowledge, bridging top-down and bottom-up social innovation process in real world context by involving relevant stakeholders. Its main characteristics are:

1- Education-based research and practice: bridging the gaps between education, research and practice in the real world context;

2- Design-driven application of new technology: design-driven approach for complex social problems, involving a mix of human and societal needs where solutions employ new technology;

3- Multi-stakeholder ecosystem: on-going development of eco-system consisting of enterprises, entrepreneurs, universities, research institutes, associations and other NGOs.

References and Track Record

LivingLab SHANGHAI bases on the works of Sino-Finnish Centre (SFC), the international multidisciplinary & open innovation platform and a joint effort of Tongji University in China and Aalto University in Finland. It has evolved to connect with several other institutions in various forms of education, research and development activities in the past few years. SFC has been one member of Design Factory Global Network (DFGN) (www.dfgn.org) in 2010, and one member of Stanford University Global Alliance for Redesign (SUGAR) (sugar-network.org) in 2013.

The main activities include:

1- turning ideas into reality by testing and validating them in a real world context of China, and in particular in Shanghai, which is one of the most dynamic and innovation driven urban environments representing a rapidly growing market and one future design and innovation hot spots globally;

2- alterative approaches and solutions to complex problems for sustainability in an environment that has both megacities and very resource limited rural areas within reach

3- knowledge of design-driven innovation approach for social innovation, driven by the interest of experts, NGOs, policy makers and municipalities in testing and implementing them in real/life settings

4- the active work in exploring livinglab methodology for education and learning.