Over the past decade, open innovation (OI) literature has extended its scope beyond strictly economic contexts to the context of societal value creation. This has given rise to the notion of (local) distributed knowledge as a driver for sustainable innovation and has highlighted the importance of multi-stakeholder collaborations in new product development (NPD) processes to develop new ICT systems for complex urban issues. Several studies have discussed sustainable stakeholder ecosystem architectures for such collaborations. However, little is known about stakeholder identification and selection processes for collaborations in the urban environment. By combining action research with a case study design, this paper studies the nature of contextualized interactions between knowledge actors in the ecosystem and the processes of attraction, identification, selection, and activation of stakeholders in an urban living lab (ULL). These insights converge in the development of a ‘stakeholder acupuncture framework’, which structures mechanisms and practices within dynamic collaboration ecosystems and defines key boundary conditions for such open-ended ecosystems.

This article builds upon communication infrastructure theory and investigates how communication practices on online neighborhood networks (ONNs) relate to the social cohesion of neighborhood communities. Specifically, we study the hyperlocal social media platform Hoplr, which provides ad-free ONNs in which neighbors can communicate with one another. Local governments can subscribe to Hoplr to communicate with their residents and engage them for community and public participation purposes. This study is based on an online survey of Hoplr members (N = 3,055) from 150 randomly selected ONNs. Social cohesion is disentangled as a combination of social support, a sense of community, reciprocal exchange, and social trust. We investigated social cohesion differences at the neighborhood level in relation to self-reported types of ONN communication practices (shared interest, supportive communication, and both tangible and informational support mobilization). The results reveal the limited value of quantified behavioral data to explain differences in neighborhood social cohesion. However, interesting patterns are revealed between different communication practices and neighborhood social cohesion, such as the importance of trivial storytelling and information exchange practices for enhancing trust, reciprocal support, and a sense of community. At the same time, a reversed relation appears when ONNs are considered explicit information exchange platforms. With these insights, we enhance the theoretical understanding of ONNs in relation to neighborhood social cohesion and within a broader repertoire of neighborhood communication infrastructures.

In the development of complex embedded interactive systems, a tension arises between, on the one hand, ever shorter and highly iterative design processes, and, on the other hand, the need for user testing with early prototypes to validate systems from a user-centred design perspective. This study focuses on the integration of Virtual Reality (VR) into prototyping embedded interactive systems, examining its potential to bridge the gap between rapid prototyping and user-centered design validation. Adopting a comparative research approach, we analyze a case study: the development of a cultural smart city experience. It juxtaposes in situ, low-fidelity prototype testing with VR-based testing, evaluating their realism, interactivity, functionality, presence and task difficulty. This mixed-method research design incorporates both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, engaging 27 design students in a comparative study, conducting participatory research and 8 expert interviews. These findings reveal divergent roles in field testing and VR in the new product development process, highlighting VR’s strengths in visualizing procedures and facilitating discussion. This study identifies the limitations of VR in mimicking realistic interactions and incorporating social context yet underscores its superiority over paper prototypes in its realism and interactivity. Where field testing can hold broader contextual insights, the VR prototype gives more concrete and applied insights. The main advantage of VR testing is its visualisation of procedures and its final materialisation according to the participants interviewed. According to the experts interviewed, VR can be used as a useful tool within the development process especially for visualisation and testing user flows of complex interfaces.

This paper presents the Living Lab Assessment Method (LLAM), a context-sensitive framework for assessing impact and value creation in Living Labs (LLs). While LLs have become established instruments for Open and Urban Innovation, systematic and transferable approaches to evaluate their impact remain scarce and still show theoretical and practical barriers. This study proposes a new methodological approach that aims to address these challenges through the development of the LLAM, the Living Lab Assessment Method. This study reports a five-year iterative development process embedded in Ghent’s urban and social innovation ecosystem through the combination of three complementary methodological pillars: (1) co-creation and co-design with lead users, ensuring alignment with practitioner needs and real-world conditions; (2) multiple case study research, enabling iterative refinement across diverse Living Lab projects, and (3) participatory action research, integrating reflexive and iterative cycles of observation, implementation, and adjustment. The LLAM was empirically developed and validated across four use cases, each contributing to the method’s operational robustness and contextual adaptability. Results show that LLAM captures multi-level value creation, ranging from individual learning and network strengthening to systemic transformation, by linking participatory processes to outcomes across stakeholder, project, and ecosystem levels. The paper concludes that LLAM advances both theoretical understanding and practical evaluation of Living Labs by providing a structured, adaptable, and empirically grounded methodology for assessing their contribution to sustainable and inclusive urban innovation.

Since the early 2000s, Living Labs have evolved as a predominantly European innovation approach focusing on information and communication technology (ICT) innovation to a worldwide phenomenon spanning multiple topics and sectors, with various innovation goals. However, there remain questions regarding their impact and effectiveness at tackling so-called ‘wicked problems’. As recent research has suggested, Living Labs have the potential of fostering and orchestrating stakeholders and activities in local innovation ecosystems; this paper investigates how this works in practice and what the outcomes and impact of a Living Lab approach are in the case of a newly emerging innovation ecosystem. This is performed via an in-depth case study of the Internet of Water project in Flanders and the subsequent outcomes and impacts on the water ecosystem in the region. The study shows that adopting a Living Lab approach functioned as the starting point and catalyst for an innovation ecosystem as opposed to the mostly scattered and siloed stakeholder landscape before the project. Although far from all ambitions were met during the project, the real-life experimentation and intense co-creation of the Living Lab approach fostered the discovery of shared goals and ambitions. This led to an intensified collaboration, not only among the consortium partners, but throughout the whole ecosystem, resulting in multiple follow-up collaborations and initiatives in an emerging innovation ecosystem on water management.