Living Labs as Research Methodology: From Innovation Buzzword to Epistemic Tool

Abstract

Living Labs have proliferated across EU-funded research programmes as vehicles for co-designing solutions to complex urban challenges, yet their methodological implications remain poorly understood. The literature primarily theorises Living Labs as platforms for co-creation and innovation delivery rather than as a research approach, leaving unexamined what they distinctively enable researchers to know. This paper investigates the epistemic capabilities the Living Lab approach makes available and how these differ from established field research methods. Drawing on four years of embedded experience within FOOD TRAILS, a Horizon 2020 project establishing urban food policy Living Labs across eleven European city-regions, a comparative framework is developed positioning Living Labs alongside case study research, ethnography, and participatory action research across six dimensions. The analysis identifies four epistemic capabilities that no single comparator method offers with comparable structural depth: extended engagement across complete policy implementation cycles; simultaneous access to diverse stakeholder perspectives through the quadruple helix architecture; real-time observation of dissemination and acceptance dynamics; and tracking emergent patterns through active intervention. The paper also documents a systematic theory-practice gap in which funded programme conditions constrain the realisation of these capabilities. These findings offer both a comparative methodological framework and practical guidance for scholars increasingly required to adopt a Living Lab approach.