Collaboration support for cross-border networks of living labs

Abstract

During the last years, the concept of Living Labs as environments of user driven and collaborative innovation has received much attention. Until recently, collaboration and networking between single living labs has not been much of an issue. The APOLLON project has now extended the concept of single living labs to cross-border networks of living labs aiming to support SMEs innovation and access to international markets. APOLLON demonstrates the opportunities of cross border living labs to support SMEs in four pilots in four different domains. This paper focuses in particular on methods, tools and guidelines to support cross-border collaboration between living labs and with SMEs. We explain the methodology that has been developed to support collaboration in initiating, planning and establishing cross border networks of living labs within APOLLON, and provide some initial results on how the methodology has supported the collaboration process. The paper analyses the collaboration processes and collaboration needs and bottlenecks, and the methods that have been applied to overcome collaboration bottlenecks.