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ENoLL Activity Report 2018
Foreword by ENoLL Chairperson
The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) celebrated its 12th birthday in 2018. ENoLL was established in 2006 during the Finnish Presidency of European Union, promoting multistakeholder and citizen driven innovation. Twelve years later, this vision was integrated in a key document: The Manifesto for Innovation in Europe -manifestoforinnovationineurope. org-, published after an editing process which included 51 people and different types of organisations. In the context of the Digital Transformation, The Manifesto provides an updated vision and highlights a list of specific lines for actions in a scenario of profound economic and societal transformations; a scenario in which innovation-led growth generated by SMEs and societal changes occur hand in hand. The EU citizen is now empowered thanks to the universal open access to knowledge, and new EU infrastructures are needed to facilitate an efficient integration of citizens in the EU knowledge society. But beyond this, The Manifesto represents a live, Open co-creation process, Open to all the Citizens, Open to the World, in order to guarantee that no one is left behind in this profound transformative process. We had the chance to deepen this “THE MANIFESTO REPRESENTS A approach during the summer of 2018 in our Open Living Lab Days Conference in LIVE, OPEN CO-CREATION PROCESS, Geneva, Switzerland. I had the honour to OPEN TO ALL CITIZENS, OPEN TO THE be elected as ENoLL Chairperson in an WORLD, IN ORDER TO GUARANTEE event in which Michael Møller, UnderSecretary-General of the United Nations THAT NO ONE IS LEFT BEHIND IN and the Director General of the United THIS PROFOUND TRANSFORMATIVE Nations Office at Geneva, shared with PROCESS” us a vision in which the Challenges that we are facing as Humankind cannot be tackled by one organisation alone anymore. The Sustainable Development Goals have become a universal framework, a global roadmap that applies to all facets of society, to all people and institutions, to all regions of the world and to every single individual. More than ever, the multi-stakeholder and citizen-centric perspective (a human-centric perspective) is known and accepted. Now, the implementation aspects, the development of the “how”, including the consolidation of sustainability and business models for living labs, appears as one of the most relevant challenges to tackle. We contributed to this with 23 projects collected in the report of the Living Lab Project Award Competition, with the 35 submitted scientific contributions, which explored the Network’s methodological multiplicity, and with 29 Open Workshops which constitute one of the most valuable assets of our Community: its potential of development through knowledge sharing. In this sense, the ENoLL Learning Lab Program was consolidated as a reference point for capacity building in living lab methodologies and tools, and this approach will be strengthened in the future in order to help the living lab Community building stronger foundations.
