On the second day of the Living Lab Training, Dr Regina Rhodius offered a workshop on ‘Transdisciplinary Collaboration, Co-creation and Institutional Approaches in the Living Lab Environment’ or: ‘How do I set up a well-functioning lab?’. Dr Rhodius is an ecologist and senior researcher at the Oeko-Institute Freiburg e.V. and published widely on living labs methodology.

Dr Rhodius gave an introduction to the classical phases of Living Labs, including co-design, co-production, co-integration, all of which can be accompanied by co-evaluation. The ‘co’ in these terms refers to the involvement of different types of stakeholders related to the problems and solutions studied in the Living Labs. Each of these phases has different objectives and uses different methods.

The workshop also included a presentation of a recent project implemented by Dr Rhodius, the Wissensdialog Nordschwarzwald (“WiNo” – a Living Lab in the Black Forest National Park region). The key questions of this project were: How can the opportunities offered by a national park be used for a regional transformation towards sustainability? What can be learned from ecological processes in the park area? The Living lab included

Other components of the workshop were key principles for the design of living labs and how to deal with typical challenges.

This workshop was part of a programme, focused on promoting German-Central Asian living lab projects. It was jointly organised by SPCE Hub, ISoG BW, and Hochschule Karlsruhe – University of Applied Sciences. The programme was financed by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the German Foreign Federal Office.