Empowering innovation: Open Living Labs Days 2015

ENoLL, the European Network of Living Labs, is an international federation of over 350 innovation labs from all over the world. As a part of the Europeana Creative project, ENoLL successfully devised innovation challenges on the themes of Natural History Education, History Education, Social Networks, Tourism and Design. They also coordinated Culture Jam pre-events in their member labs in Barcelona, Helsinki, Bristol and Krakow. The European Network of Living Labs is a strategic partner of Europeana and plays a crucial role in our growing collaboration with the creative industries.

At the end of August, I attended ENoLL’s annual summit, Open Living Labs Days, and spent four days (25-28 August) being inspired by all sorts of new ideas as well as discovering exciting partnership opportunities for Europeana. And all in the beautiful surroundings of cosmopolitan Istanbul!

Living Labs are real life hubs for invention and experimentation. They bring together users and producers to try out ideas and test designs. Open Living Labs Days included workshops, interactive sessions, lively discussion panels as well as off-site visits designed to give people greater insight into the models, theories and technologies relevant to this innovative world.

Open Living Labs Days 2015. Image: ENoLL

It also gave people taking part the opportunity to gain hands on experience, and work with leading experts, as well as network with other members of the Living Labs community. It built a valuable sense of collaboration and community which will last long after the end of the conference.

Living Labs and the creative community

The creative industries were one of the conference’s key themes, together with Smart Cities and Urban Development, Open Communities and Health & Wellbeing. In the creative industries track on the second day, the participants got a teaser introduction to Europeana and Europeana Labs as a special platform for creative professionals. This prepares for the new and improved Europeana Labs - keep an eye out, it’s coming soon!

The next day, those interested in culture and the creative industries could return to find out more about how Living Labs and their creative audiences can benefit from Europeana and Europeana Labs in a workshop titled “Labs, Culture & Creatives: happily ever after”.

Presenting Europeana Labs at a workshop. Image: ENOLL Flickr

Befitting the nature of the conference, the session brought together a diverse and international crowd: representatives from Living Labs in Spain, Tunisia, Mauritius and Brazil, a representative of the UK innovation agency Nesta, an urban development specialist from the Netherlands, and creative professionals from Turkey were among those who took part.

We started with a presentation on Europeana Labs’ audiences, services and partnerships and then followed with a case study by Lorna Stokes from ENoLL on the re-use of digital cultural content by creatives and Living Labs in the context of the Europeana Creative project.

Afterwards, we got together in groups to discuss the potential areas for collaboration between Europeana and Living Labs; in particular, how Europeana Labs can help Living Labs in serving their creative audiences and how Europeana can support future growth of the Living Labs.

The participants shared insights based on their own work with cultural heritage and creatives and bounced ideas around for possible new developments for Europeana Labs and potential joint projects.

These four days with the international Living Labs community were intense, full of inspiration, and, moreover, lots of fun. I came home buoyed by positive feedback about Europeana and Europeana Labs, and armed with a greater understanding of the Living Labs world. Even better, it’s given me all sorts of ideas for collaboration I can’t wait to get started on. I’m looking forward to the Open Living Labs Days 2016 in Canada!