Users as Co-Creators? – An Analysis of User Involvement in Urban Living Labs

Urban Living Labs are a new form of urban governance. They are considered as promising opportunities to contribute to urban sustainability transitions by addressing climate change and other related challenges on a regional level. They serve as sites to design, test and learn from innovation in real time. One key element of Urban Living Labs is user involvement. Users are considered as co-creators who do not only serve as informants but also shape outcomes by contributing with their local knowledge and expertise. Despite its importance, user involvement often remains a practical challenge and only little research has been conducted on user participation.
The aim of this research is to explore and analyse if Urban Living Labs effectively engage in participatory methodology that facilitates co-creation with users. User participation in four Urban Living Labs is examined and discussed. The ways of user involvement are identified and analysed, looking at the phases of design, implementation and evaluation The discussion is guided by an analytical framework distinguishing between four different levels of participation.
The study finds that user involvement and the levels of participation varied between and within the different Urban Living Labs. Co-creation, as the highest level of participation, was present in the Urban Living Labs but lower levels could also be found. Co-creation was not the only one dominating level of participation. This research therefore questions if co-creation should be the single one level of user involvement that Urban Living Labs should aim for or if rather a combination of different levels of involvement should be the objective.