A Scoping Review Examining Governance, Co-Creation, and Social and Ecological Justice in Living Labs Literature

Lindsay P Galway,Rachel L W Portinga,Kathryn Milun,Charles Z Levkoe

doi:10.3390/challe13010001

Lindsay P Galway, Rachel L W Portinga + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/challe13010001

Copy DOI

Journal: Challenges	Publication Date: Dec 31, 2021
Citations: 9	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Lakehead University, University of Minnesota, Duluth

Abstract

Living Labs (LLs) are increasingly being used as an approach to address complex sustainability-related challenges. Inspired by existing knowledge and practice gaps, calls for further examination of governance and co-creation in relation to LLs work, and our experiences in the Lake Superior Living Labs Network, we conducted a scoping review of the recent (2015–2019) LLs literature. This review focused on peer-reviewed LLs literature aimed at addressing sustainability-related challenges and involving universities as key collaborators specifically. This scoping review addressed the research questions: how are LLs conceptualized, described, and applied? how are LLs governed? How is co-creation supported in LLs work? and, are social and/or environmental justice considered in LLs work? From the 729 citations gathered in the electronic database searches, 48 papers were identified as relevant through the screening and eligibility assessment. We found that this literature is growing rapidly, highly interdisciplinary, and predominantly taking place within European urban centres. We summarize the findings in relation to our research questions and outline implications for interrogating governance, unpacking co-creation, and working towards social and ecological justice in LLs research and practice. We conclude by outlining four key research directions to advance LLs work, including, (1) expanding research across a greater diversity of settings; (2) examining and analyzing governance and power dynamics; (3) exploring how learning evolves via co-creation; and (4) examining how universities are impeding and/or supporting advances in relation to governance, co-creation, and justice in LLs work.

Highlights

Living Labs (LLs) are increasingly being used as an approach to address complex sustainability-related challenges
We as key collaborators to deepen our understanding of governance, co‐creation, describe the scoping review process used and summarize key findings in relation to the following research questions: (1) how are LLs conceptualized, described, and used? (2) how are LLs governed? (3) how is co-creation supported in LLs work? and (4) are social and/or environmental justice considered in LLs work? We discuss the relevance of our findings in relation to existing scholarship and our own LSLLN work
We found that the published LLs literature involving universities as key collaborators and focused on sustainability is growing, highly interdisciplinary, and predominantly taking place within Europe

Summary

Introduction

Given the growing interest in LLs, and the need to synthesize emerging knowledge and evidence, others have conducted reviews of the LLs literature over the past decade [3,4,5,6,7,8]. While these existing knowledge syntheses have advanced our collective understanding and generated important findings to advance and inform LLs work, key knowledge and practice gaps exist and calls remain for additional reviews of the LL literature. Von Wirth [9] and Schuurman [10] argue that the underlying

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion