Living Labs - Living Lab Eindhoven (Netherlands)

The living lab in Eindhoven is an approach, a way of thinking and working that emerged in the city of Eindhoven and it is materialized in various places in the city. The municipality of Eindhoven took the initiative to develop various living lab initiatives, and additionally actors from other sectors (private sector institutions, public organizations, academic and knowledge institutions and Brainport which is a triple helix collaboration between businesses, government and educational & research institutions - www.brainport.nl) developed various living lab initiatives. This resulted in a type of living lab that differs from other labs: it is not a laboratory with a building and it does not have clear hierarchical structure with clear living lab objectives, actors and programmes and projects that are organized and presented in a clear policy document. The living lab is however part and parcel of the city’s policy that is developed, supported and implemented at political and administrative level. It fits in the line of thinking and working in Eindhoven that started decades ago in which technological innovation including ICT application are linked to and combined with collaborative forms of working and citizen engagement and citizen centred developments. The 6 critical turning points (CTPs) of the living lab Eindhoven relate to a variety of initiatives, most of those are projects that were either from the beginning, or in retrospective labelled as living lab projects. The CTP 5 about the coalition agreement relates most generally to the living lab as an umbrella concept that connects the various initiatives that all share a ‘living lab way of working’.