On 20th April, Katharina Greve delivered a presentation on ‘Facilitating Co-creation in Living Labs’ at Carlo Cattaneo University (LIUC) in Castellanza, Italy.

Living labs are gaining popularity as a new platform for companies to engage with customers in a process of co-creation to understand both existing and emerging user needs. However, facilitating this co-creation process is complex because it requires the inclusion of more activities and stakeholders than those of traditional innovation models. Therefore, the objective of the workshop was to discuss what factors enable co-creation in living labs and under which conditions co-creation can be successfully pursued through living labs.

Katharina provided insights into different co-creation projects that were carried out at a living lab in Germany. She also presented co-creation project objectives and their outcomes highlighting its success across a number of industries. Finally, three main factors and their linkages were discussed: principles, people, and place which are the foundation for a framework explaining how co-creation can be facilitated in living labs. Apart from academics, also Italian entrepreneurs of traditional industries such as fashion, and footwear were invited to the workshop to discuss the challenges they face and how they can be addressed through living labs.