Learning with Living Labs - A Conversation with Heleen Geerts, Anja Overdiek, Sam Rye, Dinda Ciptaviana & Lotte Troost

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

When I was a student, I wish there were already more living labs involved, that they go beyond the classroom, go beyond the theory, the academic books, that they go out and see what is happening on the ground and how can they come up with a solution that is really grounded in the needs of residents or of entrepreneurs.

Hi everyone, and thanks for joining me again for this week's episode of the podcast. My name's Tim Logan, and the podcast is produced by Good Impact Labs. There's a lot of discussions happening these days about the future of university and higher education in general. How does it keep pace with rapidly changing and disruptive technologies? How does it meet the needs of young people and become responsive and flexible enough to generate much-needed transformations in research and development, knowledge creation, and capability building? And how does it adapt to the increasing volatility in all aspects of social, political, economic, and ecological life that we are seeing everywhere? In October last year, Monash University in Australia published a report called Advancing University Living Labs on a fascinating approach that universities and other communities are increasingly taking in response to some of these fundamental questions. As I learned more about living labs, I was introduced to more of the inspiring community of practitioners around the world who are using it. So this week, it's my huge pleasure to bring together a number of these living labs experts. I'll let them introduce themselves in a moment, but if you're new to this approach, hopefully this episode will give you an overview as well as some examples and use cases. And if you want to go deeper, there are loads of links in the show notes. Lastly, I just wanna say a big thank you to Lars Fuhrmann, who was instrumental in bringing everybody together for this episode.

My name is Anja Overdijk and I'm an associate professor at The Hague University of Applied Sciences and an expert in Living Labs.

My name is Lotte Troost. I work for Nuffic Southeast Asia. Our office in Jakarta supports knowledge diplomacy in Southeast Asia through networks, capacity building programs, and activities like Living Lab. And I work there as a project development and support officer.

Maybe to connect with Lotte after hers. Hi, my name is Anastasia Dinda Tjiptaviana. I am a practicing social designer that was the case owner for Living Labs in Jakarta, Indonesia, held by Nuffic Southeast Asia and NL Knowledge House.

Hi, my name is Sam Rai. I've been a social innovation and Living Labs practitioner for the best part of the last 15 years and currently lead the Living Lab infrastructure at Monash University, which is based down here in Australia. But we also have campuses and collaborations across Asia Pacific and Europe.

Yeah, that leads to me, Helene Geerts. I'm working for the Hague University of Applied Sciences as a lecturer and researcher and the coordinator of multi-stakeholdership projects and living labs.

Amazing. Thank you all. I mean, it's an absolute pleasure to have you all with me on the podcast. And thank you to Lars as well for bringing everybody together in coordination. But now I'm just really, really excited to be able to explore Living Labs. It's quite a new concept for me, but I was particularly inspired when I saw the Monash University report, particularly this phrase in the title, which was a relational infrastructure for transformative impact. That's— those are some big words, Sam, but totally inspiring in terms of, you know, what this podcast is all about, really thinking about what kinds of learning experiences in new institutions might education generally in schooling and university and beyond require for all of the challenges that we're collectively facing now. So yeah, maybe Sam, if I could come to you first, perhaps for listeners who really have never heard of a living lab before, could you perhaps just start off with a, a very high level, just what is this concept of a living lab? And then we'll, we'll get into hopefully some of the specifics around examples and the different aspects of, of the learning and the collaboration that goes on there. But yeah, just, just start us off with an opening in terms of what is a living lab?

Yeah, wonderful. Well, always a delight to speak to new people about this space. I guess in the simplest terms, I often talk about living labs as an agenda for change and a vehicle to make it happen. So what that means practically is that many of the challenges we face today are complex or wicked. If you like, so they can't be solved by any one organization or sector alone. So to tackle these challenges, we need to get together government, business, academia, and community. We sometimes talk about this as the quadruple helix, and we want those groups to come together to co-create responses. So that might be experiments or solutions or policies, but to do that, not on paper or in the boardroom, but in the real world in place-based ways. And to do that, really, we need to explore and adapt, to test and trial, and to do that in participatory ways so that we bring people along with us and we learn together over time. That's the core of how I see living labs.

Yeah, no, thank you. That's a great start. And Helene, maybe to you next in terms of maybe some of the ways it shows up in different places. I know it's all sorts of different sectors and different challenges that Sam just mentioned. Yeah. So how does it show up for you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

From the educational perspective, we are involved in so many different projects in different contexts and using this form, this, we call it experimental learning environment, where co-creation with multi-stakeholders in real life context is a way that is really attractive actually for a lot of stakeholders to experiment, to prototype, to test things in a context that is for real and that is living and not in a, in a particular, maybe traditional classroom, for example. So for a higher education perspective, a living lab serves actually as a bridge between learning, research, innovation. It also supports entrepreneurship, for example, or entrepreneurial education. And it takes a lot of different behavioral practice-oriented skills as well for everyone. So I find, and many people that we work with, this a very dynamic way of getting to know the why behind the why, tackling societal challenges maybe in an accelerating way. And this serves society and the people that we try to educate in a faster way.

Yeah, fantastic. I mean, the living prefix on the labs for me was just also one of the things that really drew me to it. I think that's just, it's so powerful in the aliveness of the thing that you're talking about with all the weaving of all of the different stakeholders, different challenges, different ways ways of being and learning and doing in the space. So, no, really exciting. But then taking it to maybe some examples, I would love to hear, I think that would help people also orient in what kinds of, or with what kinds of questions, or in what, in relation to what kinds of wicked problems does this show up? I mean, I know, for example, Anja, you've been working with it in the retail space even. So, yeah, if we could just give some practical examples.

Yeah, maybe I can pitch in here. I think that you have very different types of living labs. For one, you have field labs, and those labs are really developing materials, for example, and ways of— new ways of working for the fashion industry to be more circular and regenerative. And you have also field labs for new technologies like sensor technologies, also immersive technologies, and to see how to develop those further that's mostly done in field labs with a lot of technology companies and often a little less involvement of citizens. And then on the other side, you have urban living labs, labs which are really embedded into the fabric of the city and more supporting also transitions in governance, how citizens would be involved in energy transition or in circular food production in the city. So it's all what Sam says related to innovation and transitions, but in different ways. You also have labs which see themselves more as test labs, which are maybe a little bit more focused. And there a lot of companies go to develop their offerings with real users of what they are offering. So these are very different types. And I think what is always important to, to consider is that there is different types of learners also. So students, but also entrepreneurs, also knowledge institutions, also governments. So different ways of learning also together.

Yeah, no, fascinating. Thank you. So it's almost, there's private sector involvement, public sector. I mean, it just sounds really, really like crossing all, all across the whole piece. Dindap, can I perhaps come to you in relation to, I know you said part of what you are involved in is the more of the creating public spaces or co-creating public spaces. With labs. Could you perhaps give an example from Indonesia in the way that you've been doing that?

Yeah, so that was the origin story of the living labs that we have in Jakarta. As part of Kampung Collective, we were doing projects to co-create sustainable public spaces with kampung communities, which are irregular types of neighborhoods that are scattered around Jakarta. From there, we applied to be case owners for the NAFIK and Al Knowledge House living lab. And the projects that we got to work on were a variety of different ways to look at community in Jakarta. So it was with one kampung community called Kampung Susuncunir that has previously worked with us on public space. And the topics that students brought from their universities ranged from tourism that could involve public spaces. Also, some were more on waste management, some were connectivity about the neighborhood kampung to the rest of the community in the city. So it was quite a different variety of what kinds of topics that, that use the Living Lab method. And it is a testament to the flexibility of what the students could practically work on with a real community and create real projects from there.

Fantastic. Thank you. And just another curiosity I have as well. How, what kind of timeframe are we talking about in relation to, I mean, is this like a, is this a one-day experience? Is this a one-year experience for the participants? How does that work in terms of the, the kind of the space and the time particularly that it spans?

Yeah, so we have an extra added little complexity for our living lab because it was between Dutch universities and Indonesian universities. There was a period of time where the students would meet online first, or they would continue to work online. But there were about 1 or 2 weeks where they could work in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Dutch students came here. They got to meet stakeholders from the industries related to the topics that they discussed. They got to meet the neighborhood, the Kambung Susuncunir, where they could see like, oh, the problems that are impacting the real people. And how they could play a part in analyzing what the problem is, create maybe a solution. It spans between different universities. Some had more time than others. Some had more for online time, some had more for offline time. Maybe Lotte, could you?

Yeah, sure. I think you, you really touched upon a big point in our Living Lab indeed, that because we involved students from Indonesia and the Netherlands, I think that made our Living Lab also quite unique because it had this extra like intercultural collaboration component with it. But it, on the other hand, it came also with an extra challenge indeed, navigating the different time zones, asynchronous academic calendars. Yeah. So when the Dutch students had their summer break, the Indonesian students were actually having lots of time to do Living Lab activities. So that was, yeah, it was quite interesting to see for me also as a coordinator of the Living Lab, how that developed over time. And it, I think our Living Lab was quite flexible also to accommodate the changes along the way. And I think that makes it really unique. It's not set in stone from the start. It allows for adjustments along the way in terms of the timeline, the scope of focus. Yeah, I think that was really interesting. To see as a coordinator of the Living Lab.

Fantastic. Thank you. That's great. Helene?

Yeah, actually, you were saying, and thank you, Lotte, for this, because these practical things are so important to be aware of once you start a Living Lab or want to embrace a Living Lab as a form of experimenting. And we have some very practical examples. I mean, there's locations and spaces that you need or are provided with by local governments, for example, but we work in hospitals, we work in playgrounds, we work in shops or shopping malls, we We work together with people in elderly homes. So in different sectors and different cross-boundaries spaces, the physical space sometimes really helps you also timeline-wise to come over these challenges of do we have time enough? Do we have like a year? Do we have 3 months? And mainly what my experience is, is that you need more editions in order to be able to use the insights and the results that come out of a particular project or a particular hackathon, for example, or a challenge that you work with, with the different stakeholders involved. So you can use 3 weeks, but then you have a project, you know, then there's assignment provider who says we have a challenge and then people work with it and then that's it. But you would like to have like a circular, yeah, loop actually that is sustainable and that takes a longer period of time. So you need the space for that as well in time, but also like a location where you can work from with these stakeholders and to design the process like Lotte says, and let the process go and flow and see how long you need. But we mainly get grants as well to work with these forms of learning and experimenting. So if you apply for a grant, a grant will take you like maybe a year or maybe 3 years, and then it might. Be the end of a living lab. So this is one of the challenges, but also a good thing, I think, that you really are focusing on what is it that we would like to tackle, what is it that we'd like to get a grip on or like to work on, and how long do we think we need in order to sow a little bit and to plant the seeds and then see what happens afterwards and how much time you need afterwards. So maybe the other ones can react on this as well.

No, thank you. Sam, did you want to?

I can add to that a little bit. I think this question of time is quite interesting, right? Because there's pragmatic ways we can look at that. We can get a grant and we can do something for a while. But I, I guess this is why I often talk about Living Labs as sort of a platform for change over time. So really we're trying to help people stick with the trouble long enough to make a difference. And to do that, sometimes we are creating innovation environments where people will dip in and out. So sometimes you'll have students come in for 2 weeks, but sometimes you'll also have much longer, slower running, you know, diffuse design type initiatives over time. And we also start to develop things like cycles where we would run them for 3 to 6 months where partners could step in and out of things and you could almost bookend the learning that you were trying to do. But I guess the idea of that platform really kind of led me to some of the thinking around and the language that you pointed to earlier around the idea of relational infrastructure as the core of one of the things that we are doing with Living Labs is actually developing the relationships and the joint learning, the joint experiences that allow us to build our potential as an ecosystem over time.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, really interesting. Anja.

Yeah, I love how, uh, Sam describes the Living Lab as a container you could use over time for student engagement and for student learning. But I also think the involvement of students and also teachers is also dependent on how and what they learned before. So are they used to learn in environments where there is no clear assignment, but they are looking for their assignment? And are the teachers used to not giving an assignment and certainty, but coach the students? So I think this is another aspect which is very important to the question of feasibility. How long do students need to learn in labs? It depends on how the bigger system of education also supports this form of learning.

That's so fascinating because that's a lot of the things that are coming up for me in relation to this are, I mean, these questions that come up all the time for me about kind of how much structure and how much agency and space for those, like the relationship between those things in more student-centered or progressive or, you know, holistic educational methods. That's often a tension, right? Is how much space do you give for the things to develop and emerge and how much structure do you, do you kind of bring into the space? And it strikes me that, Lotte, Dinda, maybe I could come to you, that it feels like it would put quite a lot of emphasis on the person who is inviting for coordinating, running, I guess maybe is the right verb, I don't know, the Living Lab itself, right? Lotte, you said that's a kind of a role that you've taken as a coordinator. It feels like that's quite a significant piece of this in terms of somehow orchestrating or conducting the thing that happens.

Yeah, it is. But that's also why we in the living lab of the NL Knowledge House work together with, yeah, we call it case owner. So in this case, it was Dinda and her team from Kampung Kollektif who really act as the experts on the topic that the living lab is about. So there we could divide the roles a little bit. If the students needed information or insights about the kampung community in Jakarta, they would go to Dinah and her team because they have been working there already for quite some time. And if the students had questions more related to the progress or how could we translate our results or make it more visible, for example, communicate about it on social media, or we want to share our solutions with this stakeholder, that's where I would come in more to see how we can help disseminating their ideas. So I think we had together with Dinda and our team, we had a really nice, yeah, working together in making sure and navigating the challenges of having teams coming in at different times of the year from different areas in Indonesia and the Netherlands.

Interesting. Yeah. So interesting. So Dinda, could you say, I mean, this is kind of new language to me, this idea of a case owner. Could you just unpack that a little bit? Excuse the pun. Just, yeah, what does that mean a bit more in terms of how that shows up?

So it showed up, actually, it was an open call for case owners. So I assumed that it was something normal for Living Labs. But the role was generally to be the point of contact for the community or the topic that was involved. So the topic for us was the kampung in Kota Tua, the Kampung Susuncunir. The point of contact was through me. And I was also then, when the universities came to do a topic, I would see what kinds of connections could be built with the community and with external companies, or different kinds of ways that it could be connected back to how the community could be involved, how the students could look from their backgrounds what could be done in the context of the Living Lab.

Thank you. So again, excuse my ignorance, but just exploring some of where perhaps it emerges from is from broader collaborations, as you say, like perhaps between institutions or between an institution and a private sector organization or a community-based organization and a university. So is that, is it that the Living Lab somehow provides a kind of relational joint space to explore a shared concern. I mean, I don't know whether that would be an accurate description.

Yeah, I think so. It's also quite— I think here in Jakarta, in Indonesia, how the universities work, there is something that I felt was quite similar to living labs, but the formatting was quite different. So we have Kakaen which means how universities come to communities and create a real impact. That's the name of the class. But from there, I think what was different from how that worked and how Living Labs worked was the position of the students. So what I found was unique was that in Living Labs, the students came in with more of an equal playing field with the communities and an equal playing field with the different stakeholders. Where in Kakaen in Indonesia, normally the students would come in to be something like a savior kind of role where if a community doesn't have water yet, they would be in charge of doing like a miracle worker. But when they had to do living lab and we started from conversations like, oh, this community would be involved in the process, your output might have to be more realistic. It might have to be something that could involve them and could be more sustainable after the students leave. I think that was quite a new way of seeing like, oh, the work of how a student's role when they interact with community could be different in that way.

That's interesting. And just to clarify, the KAKAN thing you were just talking about, is that was an Indonesian university within Indonesian community?

Yeah, that's a typical university class that people would take.

I see. Okay. So it's kind of community outreach or trying to have some broader impact of the university and community. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Wow. That's super interesting. Helene, did you want to come in on that?

I find this very interesting as well. And I, you see that the engagement of the different stakeholders and the shift of the, or the power, for example, between the different people that are involved, the reciprocity, the equality, the togetherness, it also, it needs trust building. And these are all kinds of skills that are being developed during this process or during this form, like a living lab. And that also means that, like you were saying, Tim Logan, you really need someone that is the glue between all those people involved, or the challenge and the, the case owner, the, the local government. They all have interests, and some of them are more eager or willing to work with, with this process or this kind of experiment. And sometimes in, in different phases of the project or the living lab, people are more involved than other phases. So you really need to keep on track and talk to each other, communicate all the time to see, okay, what is it that you would like to gain from this, or what is it that you would like to deliver? So it's give and take all the time. And that the shifting of those, like you were saying, Dinda, as well with the vision that people have on students that are maybe beginners or starters in learning, or vice versa, they citizens, for example, residents, they think, no, they are the all-knowing, they already know a lot more than we do. So you really have to be careful with this during the whole process and guiding people in this and letting everyone have their own way in learning, experimenting, and showing what they would like to take out of it. But it takes patience and also energy and a lot of positive energy, I think, as well. It can gain a lot of positive energy, but it can take a lot of time.

Yeah.

Yeah, but that's a super interesting point though, I think, because a lot of these more wide boundary, I would say, kind of spaces where multiple things are happening all at once. And as you say, you've got multiple stakeholders and multiple agendas at play and multiple different levels of competence and experience, et cetera. I mean, in some ways it does take a lot of energy for, and commitment to that idea to do that, right?

Otherwise, yeah, definitely. It's someone that coordinates this with a profile, with different maybe skills than a regular lecturer or, you know, so it's not anyone that maybe can do this, if I'm being critical on it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anja, please.

Yes, I'd like to circle back to your question about the common challenge because I think that is very important. So the common challenge shared between stakeholders in a living lab, I think it's the carrying force of a living lab. So, that is very, very interesting and important to align on this common challenge, and that can be on very different levels. As I said before, in field labs, the challenges is often that new technologies introduce new possibilities of working in your field, for example, the flower industry in our region, with new technologies, but also with using energy needs to work very differently, much more locally. So, they have this challenge to work in a sustainable way with these new technologies. And that is what they want to find out together with students and companies and how to do this. And that always has a technical and a social aspect. Whereas in this urban living labs, like the one we are talking about in Jakarta also, it's really about how the citizens want to develop in, in a changing environment and how other stakeholders really also support support that, like local governments and local entrepreneurs. So this common challenge is really the uniting factor.

Thank you. Yeah, so interesting. And I mean, given the focus of the, the podcast more generally and my interest and the broader connection with the idea of education, I mean, you've spoken about people's roles in it, and maybe for some lecturers or for some professors in university, this may be a slightly unusual way of working, but also we've got students coming into it. And so there's a learning emphasis that I imagine is there as well. It's not just all about the innovation or the product of the, of the end of the process that you're trying to get to, whether it's a new public space or a new product for the flower industry or whatever. There's some emphasis on the learning in the process. So perhaps you could, some of you could reflect on that. How does that show up? How do you prioritize that, like the learning of students who have perhaps never experienced this industry before or this way of working before? How do you surface the learning? How do you kind of identify and help them realize what they're learning in the process? How do you balance that with the broader kind of product orientation of trying to get somewhere and generate some impact and some results through the process? Lotte, did you want to jump in?

Yeah, sure, I can share something about that because with our Enam Knowledge House Living Lab, yeah, of course we hope that the Living Lab results in some innovative ideas that eventually can be adopted and being carried forward by the local community. But there's also very much a focus on creating connections between the students from Indonesia and the Netherlands, creating connections between the students and Dinda's team as well as the local community. And also bringing together the lecturers from Indonesia and the Netherlands. So we see the Living Lab really as a tool as well to foster these collaborations. It was really nice to see that beyond this Living Lab, the institution that we worked with from Indonesia and the Netherlands also started to collaborate on other projects because they got to know each other through this Living Lab. So for that, that was really satisfying for me to see that, yeah, the Living Lab could also be a tool to foster these collaborations. I also wanted to share that in our Living Lab, to create these connections between the students, especially when they are coming from different cultural backgrounds and they never met each other before, they come from different disciplines as well, we had people from English literature until law, until environmental engineering and everything in between. So it was, we had to bring them together and shape a team. So we organized a cultural workshop also for them to create awareness, to let them understand each other's cultural differences, but also how these impact their communication and collaboration, why do they approach the things as they do it, and how is that being impacted by their culture. So we really hope that through this workshop, although it was just a few hours, it could at least, yeah, create the awareness amongst the students and also help them, yeah, develop some competences, how to accept also that there will be differences and different attitudes and different ways of working and how How can you actually use that as a strength within your project? So that was really fun to see what that did with the students.

Yeah, fascinating. And I guess they, it really makes a difference when they experience that in practice because then they come up against the relational challenges or intercultural misunderstandings or, or, you know, they bump up against those things in the process of doing it. So that's where a lot of the learning happens as well, I can imagine. Yeah, super interesting. Anja?

I think that transformational learning is really what Living Labs contribute to. So what was described for the Jakarta Living Lab, that students really understand or reflect on their own worldviews and understand others and also develop more empathy for others. I think that is also true for entrepreneurs or for governments who participate in Living Labs. And that is very unique. And I think that the immersive character of Living Labs, that you really do things together and experience things together, is very, very important for that. And Living Labs also only start to realize now that that is really one of their core values because Living Labs have been evaluated very much on their outcome before. Was there an innovative product at the end? But often it's not so straightforward. There's not immediately a product. But you can really see the transformational learning when you experience that as a researcher in my case, but also as a teacher. And I think we need to develop more ways to evaluate and show that.

Yeah, that's fascinating. So interesting. Because I mean, just as you were saying that, I was curious about the outcome, because clearly that's gotta be balanced in the part of the process, right? And just an awareness for me, I think is a, I think is an evidence-based awareness rather than just a hope that you get better ideas from more relational, more diverse experiences that it, you would hope surface more creative possibility based on the diverse exchanges that might happen between multiple stakeholders across disciplines, et cetera. Rather than just the more kind of linear engineering innovation processes that we have been used to. That's my belief. I think, you know, it'd be interesting to know, do you also see that in living labs process as well?

Yeah, I can relate and respond to that. I'm actually working on a project with some research involved on the value case of living labs and what it contributes to the transformational learning and transdisciplinary learning. And what you see, and I can, I can give you a practical example. We worked in these suburban and urban areas where retail, you mentioned it before, was a bit, had a big challenge and still has, but also like it's the economic motor of all kinds of environments, right? So we were looking together with Anja, I worked in this project and we were looking at how do these skills and the future skills of these entrepreneurs and these retail owners of shops, for example, but also the employees are being future-proofed by us, educational institutions, and by everyone involved. And the students went there and they were actually in the beginning, they thought, well, either we know everything because we are the consumers, so we are the end users, so we might help the entrepreneurs in order to be able to get into the future. Or they were very much anxious. Okay, what do I know? Actually, I just started my education and But when they have these discussions in real life with the people that were involved, you could see that the trust building, for example, the trust building process was again very important and that people were working on this challenge together for the same cause. And they knew, okay, if I'm going to do this or I'm working already with the digital tool or technology, why don't you work with that yet? Or why is your webshop or your website not? Not future-proof yet. So what do you have to do in order to be able to be skilled to do that in the longer run? That is what a student could help them with. And you saw the, not the insecurity, yeah, maybe the insecurity, you saw it shift to, hey, together we know so much more and I learned from you, you learned from me. How is this possible and what do we do next? Because this is really cool, you know. So people like this way of of just trying out, learning by doing. And this is something that I wanted to share with you because it's one example, but we see it all the time. But to nail this down and say, okay, what is it exactly that comes out of it? Not in the KPI effect, which is also important because both is important, but what is the indirect effect and impact that we cause with this way of working?

Fascinating. Thank you. Amazing. Linda?

Yeah, just to jump in on that, I think Reflecting on our living lab, we had a bit of time to prepare for the students to prepare online, and they were doing like background research and they had ideas coming up. But then when the time came for them to come to the community and spend time, build the trust, and do the care work that builds on how they understand the community and the problems they face, all of the ideas weren't applicable. They had to then be more flexible to see like, oh, if this doesn't work for this cultural context, what could work? Or what kind of small step they could take together now that also fits with how the community already works and/or builds on something that the community already has. And I think that kind of time to reflect and to build on what exists is what makes the living lab quite unique. The way that it could position the students to also come in, reflect with communities and with the topic to see how they could look at things maybe in a different way that they previously would.

I love it. No, it's so interesting, isn't it? Because it's like helping the learners themselves meet reality rather than kind of so often in education, it's like, you know, we just invite them to do all this work work kind of in their hands in the classroom, right?

Yeah.

And the Dutch students didn't speak Indonesian, so they had to do a lot more to connect with the community because they had to have translators. But some of them would even try to learn the language a bit or have these relationships that I, I also don't quite know how they got close with the residents because one was practically the daughter of the resident, the kampung resident, and I didn't understand. Oh, they don't speak the same language, but they very friendly with each other and I think that worked.

Yeah, so much learning, right? I mean, it's just so much learning on so many levels going on there. I love that. It's so interesting. I wasn't planning on asking you this, but if you don't mind, the, in general to all of you, a lot of my work personally is in the K-12 space, you know, with younger students, right? As I was a teacher in, in school and, and now work a lot with the IB and we do some kinds of similar things around some of these things we've been talking about, not using living labs, But my curiosity was, have you seen or could you see this kind of format working with younger students in more of a school context? We've been talking a lot about higher education, but can you, could you possibly see it working or would it have to adapt somehow? Or, you know, yeah, what would be your reflections there if you were involving younger students in this?

Maybe a bit from me. I want to reflect a bit on it because in Indonesia, age matters quite a lot in the way that there's more hierarchical culture. Also part of the training that Votta gave us, and I thought that was a big part of how this kind of project might or might not work, like the make it or break it kind of thing. Because when you're younger here, I think you'd assume that older people would know more, or the way that a student would approach something is like, oh, maybe other people would know, maybe I'm not good enough yet, or there's like this tendency to hold back. But from the Living Lab, the way that it approaches that everyone is learning together and there's this level playing field, I think that was a moment where they could break that kind of hierarchical thinking and give a chance to work together in a way that they don't assume things about other people or they don't bring their own assumptions on how complex the topic is for other people as well. Because it's almost always complex for all parties. We are gonna have to break it down together and see how it could be developed.

Yeah.

Amazing. That's so interesting. Thank you. Anja?

Yeah, we are working in an urban living lab context in a neighborhood where we are looking at how neighbors can contribute to city biodiversity. We are working with a school called John Dewey School. So it's already a school focused on learning by doing. And what you see there is that with younger students, they are more peer-oriented than older students. So they really are focused on their own peer group. And that's what they, I think, I'm not a developmental specialist on that, but we found out that we need smaller assignments for them, more like citizen science assignments, like taking a tool and going out into the nature and doing some experiments together. Which is already, you know, can be part of a living lab, but less challenging than being exposed to a lot of different worldviews. You know, I think that is really for older students.

Fascinating. Yeah. So almost like it's just a different kind of facilitation choice that you might make as part of, because that was actually interesting, Helene, you said that earlier, that that was something I wasn't aware of, that there isn't necessarily a one clear format for a living lab. You might make different choices for different different facilitation styles or methods or approaches at different times for different audiences. So yeah, fascinating. Helene, do you want to jump in?

Yeah, we actually, we have some examples of, we have made documentaries in different areas in this region facilitated, organized by children of primary and secondary education, but also having them interviewed on how would you like the playground is going to be designed, you know, so they have these design projects, for example. But I agree with Anja, they're very small. I mean, they, it's challenge-based. They get a challenge, they work on it, and they're guided by others. They talk to citizens, et cetera, but it's a bubble where they do their thing in.

Yeah.

Safe space.

Yeah. Lovely. And I mean, maybe just, maybe just to kind of bring it back around to you and your work in the space. I didn't ask you this earlier, but I would really like to ask you, why do you care about this? This topic. I mean, we've talked in general in all sorts of just completely fascinating ways about what living labs are, but clearly they're a choice that you make about, you know, you could approach these challenges in a, in a very different way. So what is it that you care about specifically? Why do you step into this space? Yeah, where's your heart in relation to this work?

I think the first thing that comes to my mind is when I was a student, I wish there were already more living labs involved. It was not really a thing yet. I think it's therefore really enjoyable to me that I can now give that opportunity in my work to students, that they go beyond the classroom, go beyond the theory, the academic books, and have a project together based on the real world, that they go out and see what is happening on the ground and how can they respond to local needs and come up with a solution that is really grounded in the needs of residents or of entrepreneurs. I think that's such a cool thing that it's now being more applied into education, Living Labs. I wish I, I was a student again and could also join one of these Living Labs.

Lovely. Thank you. It's Sam.

I guess I'm really passionate about Living Labs as that sort of enduring vehicle for change work.. So we know that people need to stick with the trouble for years in some cases to really make the kind of change that we need in this world that we're living in. And so Living Labs can be those places and those spaces that we hold people over time and do that work in connected and engaging ways. So I think that idea of collaborative co-creation the relational connections that people have, the building of agency and purpose, all of that can happen in a Living Labs environment. And overall, from my experience, they can be fun. I think it's a really underappreciated thing. So, you know, in summary, really the idea that more people being involved in shaping their own futures is going to create better outcomes for all of us is really the roots of why I believe living labs matter.

Fantastic. Helene?

Yeah, I'm looking at a colleague, a student colleague of ours, Lars. He's also involved in this podcast and did some research on it. And I'm looking at his face right now and he's nodding his head as well. And I think when we talk to students, because we're not talking with students at this point, but of course we do all the time and ask them, what is it that you like about this or not? And that really, really shapes my development as well. And I'm really fighting almost for innovation in education. I mean, we are still talking about very traditional ways of sending information, people absorbing information, meaning our students, and the hierarchy Dinda also mentioned between lecturers, professors, researchers, students, you know, it's the whole system is still not very ready for this VUCA world, like this volatile, fast-changing dynamics. And This is what my, maybe almost passion, yeah, it is. I mean, I'm really fighting to get this thing done and to have this other way of learning, this other way of co-creating, helping each other tackling these massive wicked problems that we are encountering. We need to think and act differently than we did before. So for us, I'm part of this research group, Designing Value Networks. Networks is so important in this in order to be able to shift everything that we were used to. And this is cross-sectoral and it's a very— these transitions are— we're in it. It's not going to come. We're in it. And that reflection and that realization is, to be honest, not there yet in our institutions. So it's also an institutional cultural change that we— which also takes time. So my institution is also my living lab. So yeah, that's my story.

Yeah, no, I love it. Thank you. And that's— I mean, That's a lot of why I run the podcast as well, for this, those same things, you know. So no, I'm, I love that we're here talking about this. Thank you. Anja?

My passion for Living Labs really stems from the conviction that we need new ways of learning together. And that is not only for students in schools, but also students of all ages in different roles, because for these big challenges we have, of achieving circular production and consumption, energy neutrality, local food systems. We need to unlearn also old ways of collaborating and develop new ways of relating and collaborating to each other. And I think the Living Labs are a great space to do that.

Amazing. Thank you. And Dinda?

Yeah, for me, coming into how the Living Labs work, it always felt quite natural as a designer. It felt like how you would empathize and see the process of design through this kind of multi— different majors, different backgrounds, different stakeholders. And it felt like it's— yeah, I agree with Lotte. It's the kind of education I thought that I would have loved if I was still in school. And after the Living Lab, I applied to do another master's because I was curious how education in Europe was like, because when I saw the the lectures and the students' relationships where the students could debate or criticize what the lecturers would say, or they could do a lot more to dig up like information. I thought that would be so cool to do again. So I applied and I will start in September for an Erasmus Mundus.

Oh, I love that. Congratulations. That's fantastic. I mean, just so inspiring because it's what I've heard so often is like there are so many different kind of ripple effects, second-order effects of a living lab. It's not just necessarily the one thing that you're all there for. There's many things going on in what you've reflected on. And yeah, no, so interesting to hear. Lars, I'm going to put you on the spot. Tell me why you care about— come on, you can't just sit here and listen to this whole beautiful thing and not contribute. So tell me, why do you care about living labs, Lars? I care about living labs. So before I started this podcast episode, I really didn't know a lot about living labs, so I had to read up a lot. And I had the absolute privilege of also going to the living labs of TU Delft and like seeing it on the, on the ground and how things work. And I think I take from this how much power for innovation is there, and especially connecting the, the practical aspects directly to theory, directly to all the different stakeholders being engaged. I think it is a very effective way. Effective way of working, especially for the wicked problems, because you have to put the stakeholders at the same table to be able to find solutions. And so I think my journey with Living Labs is not over. I'm very excited to further look into them. There's so much potential there. Fantastic. Thank you. And just thank you so much for helping to really bring this all together, bring everybody together. And hopefully there's perhaps going to be some other developments off the back of this, maybe going into some more case studies of specific Living Labs, maybe on your own podcast channel. Helene, did you want to have the final word?

Yeah, exactly, Tim, because we were discussing this before a couple of times that we have this network of living labs in Europe called ENOL, and we're actually part of that with, with a working group, education and learning. So it's also an invitation to people that want to know more about living labs or want to be involved or want to do research or want to collaborate. Yeah, please do. I mean, it's a lovely, lovely community. It's getting bigger and bigger. And we also have people from South Africa. From Brazil, Portugal, from Australia. So everyone is more than welcome. And just these things like this exchange of knowledge between different parts of the world and continents is also changing our perspective again, you know, our Northern European way of thinking and doing like, like what Dinda was saying now, you know, how are you doing things and what, what can you learn from each other in order to develop the spaces more and more? So. An invitation to you as well, Tim.

Thank you so much, Noor. And it's, I mean, yeah, we've kind of explored Indonesia and the Netherlands this time, and I think hopefully there'll be some future episodes on other countries all over the world where this is happening. So, no, thank you all so much. It's been absolutely inspiring to hear, and I really, yeah, I hope it really inspires listeners to think about this in their context as well. So, no, thank you all very much. Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, Tim. Thank you, everyone.

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