- Convenors:
-
Spela Zalokar
(European Network of Living Labs)
Nehis Osagie (Waag Futurelab)
Mirabela Marin
Tudose Nicu Constantin
Bertille Auvray (European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL))
Nora Salas Seoane (Science For Change)
Arlind Xhelili (Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP))
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Roundtable
Short Abstract
This roundtable explores how citizen science can be integrated within Living Labs. Using real-life examples from different European Living Labs, it highlights practical applications, good practices, implementation challenges, and the future potential of this approach.
Description
This roundtable session will explore the dynamic intersection between citizen science and Living Labs, focusing on how these two methodologies can be synergistically applied to foster innovation and inclusive societal development. Living Labs, by design, involve quadruple helix stakeholders—academia, industry, public sector, and citizens—making them ideal environments to implement citizen science initiatives.
Drawing on a series of concrete case studies examples from across Europe, the session will explore how citizen science has been effectively embedded within Living Labs, emphasizing both the benefits and the challenges encountered. By presenting examples from existing Living Labs, the session will offer insights into how the citizen challenge approach can be applied within Living Lab frameworks.
Through the roundtable discussion we will seek to understand the evolving role of citizens not just as factors, but as active contributors to research and innovation activities. The session will also explore the future potential of implementation of the citizen science approach within Living Labs. We will explore the emerging trends and how we can ensure inclusivity and long-term impact.
Ultimately, the goal is to gather shared experiences and develop ideas on how to better harness the power of citizen science within the structured, collaborative ecosystems of Living Labs.
Accepted contributions
Short Abstract
Building networks of trust between citizen science networks and Living Labs in policy making, focusing on the citizen science networks, understanding sandboxing as a framework for making living labs attractive to policy makers, and knowledge brokerage between institutions in the quadruple helix.
Abstract
Citizen scientists are taking an active role in collecting data, analysing data sets, contributing to study design, or disseminating results for policy action. Using the living lab model, citizen science projects can build scientific data sets or policy recommendations, or management action for actionable policies in democratic governance systems. Living Labs can support interdisciplinary research on Biodiversity citizen science projects, which involve monitoring of the natural world and collecting data about the natural environment that requires research and policy actors to engage with volunteer-driven networks. Living labs offer a methodology for understanding these networks, and can help to develop effective and just partnerships for biodiversity conservation that contribute to sustainable collaborative and creative innovation ecosystems with industry, academia, government, and other civil society groups.
Policy from the EU to the national level needs to percolate into regulations, norms, and standards, requiring citizen scientists to understand the kinds of evidence admissible in environmental compliance monitoring and judicial evaluation enforcement. Evisights will provide inputs on the role of citizen science and living labs in regulatory learning to gather the evidence needed to propose new or revised measures (top-down) or to gain insights from emerging innovation activity in an experimentation space (bottom-up), exploring the opportunity of using interoperability regulatory sandboxes as fora to create regulatory learnings. We will refer to conceptual work and data coming from the ENFORCE project, developing innovative solutions that aim to tackle the frequent mismatch between the environmental data gathered by citizens and what authorities require for enforcement purposes.
Short Abstract
Climate-smart forestry is mandatory to improve greenhouse gas storage capacity. Part of the Romanian forests are included in the UNESCO World Heritage list. This study will investigate the role of citizen science in promoting sustainable forest management.
Abstract
Forests play a crucial role in mitigating the negative effects of climate change, preserving biodiversity, and providing essential ecosystem services. The economic and social development relies on the sustainable management of resources, especially wood. Within the EU, forests cover about 4% of the world's forested land and retain 7% of all greenhouse gas emissions annually. Their contribution to achieving climate neutrality makes climate-smart forest management essential for boosting their capacity to store greenhouse gases.
In Romania, forests cover approximately 29.3% of the country's surface area. The rich diversity of these forests has led to several Romanian forest areas being designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Despite slight increases in Romania's forested land in recent years, deforestation remains a persistent concern.
This study will explore how citizen science can contribute to sustainable forest management, complementing the actions of relevant actors and cooperating with them to identify, develop, and utilize the most suitable tools for monitoring the exploitation and transportation of wood material.
Preliminary findings from the Brasov case study highlight several critical needs: greater local accountability, proper enforcement of legislation, optimized wood measurement and transportation, and support for forest owners (including compensation and financial aid for various obligations). Participants also called for improved techniques for forest management and better communication among various stakeholder categories, including expanded academic collaboration.
Therefore, active citizen participation in forest monitoring and environmental compliance can significantly contribute to the transition towards forest sustainability, enhancing public awareness about forests, fostering informed actions, and thus enabling transformative change.
Short Abstract
Living Labs (CARMINE) and citizen science (ScienceUs) co-create climate services, engage communities, and scale local adaptation strategies for building resilient, inclusive metropolitan regions across Europe.
Abstract
The CARMINE project has developed a network of Living Labs as experimental environments for co-creating climate services tailored to the specific needs of metropolitan communities. These Living Labs foster collaboration between researchers, public authorities, businesses, and citizens, enabling the testing and refinement of digital tools, models, and participatory approaches for climate adaptation. In parallel, the ScienceUs project aims to scale citizen science initiatives that empower individuals and communities to contribute actively to climate resilience through data collection, monitoring, and local action.
This abstract examines the synergies between the two approaches, highlighting how Living Labs offer the necessary infrastructure, governance models, and stakeholder engagement frameworks to support the long-term sustainability and impact of citizen science projects. Key questions addressed include: How can citizen-generated data be integrated into climate services developed in Living Labs? What mechanisms ensure that citizen science initiatives align with scientific standards and policy needs? How can the quadruple helix model be leveraged to scale successful experiments into broader adaptation strategies?
By connecting the experimental depth of Living Labs with the participatory reach of citizen science, the two projects offer complementary pathways for democratizing climate knowledge and action. Together, they contribute to building inclusive, data-informed, and resilient metropolitan regions, aligned with the goals of the EU Mission “Adaptation to Climate Change.”
Short Abstract
AUTH will present the Thessaloniki pilots of GILL and INNOVADE, showcasing how Citizen Science and Living Labs can co-create digital democracy tools and gendered innovation ecosystems that foster inclusivity, trust, and citizen empowerment in governance.
Abstract
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) will present insights from the Thessaloniki pilots of two Horizon Europe projects: GILL (Gendered Innovation Living Labs) and INNOVADE (Innovative Democracy through Digitalisation). Both pilots explore how Citizen Science methodologies can be embedded in Living Lab ecosystems to promote participatory, inclusive, and gender-responsive innovation.
In GILL, Thessaloniki serves as a testbed for gendered and diversity-aware innovation practices that involve citizens, industry, government, and academia in co-designing equitable digital and social solutions. In INNOVADE, Citizen Science is applied to the co-creation of digital democracy tools, engaging diverse communities in defining needs, testing prototypes, and evaluating social impact.
Together, the pilots demonstrate how Citizen Science complements Living Lab principles—turning citizens into co-researchers and co-creators of knowledge and technology. This dual approach enhances usability, inclusiveness, and trust, while addressing challenges linked to governance gaps, digital divides, and cultural barriers common in Southeastern Europe.
AUTH contributes both methodological and technological innovations, including tools such as DemocraSeek (a generative AI knowledge navigator) and DemocratAIze (an AI-based analysis platform), designed to strengthen transparency, explainability, and citizen engagement.
The presentation will highlight how these pilots enrich the broader European learning ecosystem of Living Labs by advancing bottom-up, gendered, and participatory innovation for more democratic and resilient societies.
Short Abstract
This roundtable uses insights from Three Days Inside to discuss key dilemmas for embedding citizen science in Living Labs: control vs. co-creation, system vs. lifeworld, short-term projects vs. long-term trust.
Abstract
Citizen science and Living Labs both promise inclusive innovation, yet their practice is full of dilemmas. This roundtable builds on insights from Three Days Inside, a participatory action research experiment in Appingedam (NL), a shrinking region affected by demographic change, earthquakes, and declining trust in institutions.
For three days, researchers immersed themselves in community life, joining walks, meals, and collaborative activities. The experiment highlighted that participation depends less on formal methods than on attitudes of openness, reflexivity, and willingness to share control. At the same time, it surfaced critical dilemmas:
• Control vs. co-creation: letting go is essential, but often confrontational.
• Relational vs. transactional working: residents value long-term presence, while institutions push for visible results.
• Formal ethics vs. everyday ethics: protocols clash with context-sensitive trust-building.
• System vs. lifeworld: policy logics often miss the realities of daily life.
• Short projects vs. long-term trust: continuity is crucial, yet hard to secure.
These tensions show that embedding citizen science in Living Labs is not just methodological, but ethical and political. In this roundtable, we invite participants to reflect on their own experiences of such dilemmas, and to discuss strategies for strengthening reciprocity, trust, and inclusivity. Together, we will explore how Living Labs can move beyond symbolic participation and support genuine co-creation of knowledge and innovation.
Short Abstract
Comparative insights from three Horizon Europe projects—CROSSEU, OptFor-EU, and CARMINE—show how participatory Decision Support Systems evolve into actionable climate and decarbonisation services, linking science, policy, and stakeholders to strengthen Europe’s climate resilience.
Abstract
This paper explores how participatory approaches to Decision Support Systems (DSS) generate actionable climate services that strengthen climate resilience and evidence-based decision-making. Drawing on three Horizon Europe projects—CROSSEU, OptFor-EU, and CARMINE—it analyses how citizen science, stakeholder co-creation, and multi-actor engagement transform complex modelling and data into user-oriented, operational climate services.
In CROSSEU, cross-sectoral collaboration drives the co-design of a DSS for assessing socio-economic climate risks—including heatwaves, droughts, floods, and energy insecurity—illustrating how participatory processes enhance the usability and policy integration of risk assessments. OptFor-EU engages forest managers, policymakers, and local communities to co-develop a forest DSS supporting climate-smart and decarbonisation-oriented management under threats such as wildfire, pest outbreaks, and biodiversity loss. The project demonstrates how co-created decision tools evolve into climate services that inform sustainable forest practices and carbon mitigation strategies. CARMINE integrates citizen observatories and municipal partnerships to co-produce urban DSS applications addressing air quality, heat stress, and flood vulnerability, linking participatory monitoring with tailored local climate services.
Across the three initiatives, key lessons learned include: (1) co-creation enhances the legitimacy and practical value of DSS outputs; (2) integrating diverse user knowledge increases the spatial and contextual precision of climate data; and (3) the transition from DSS to operational climate and decarbonisation services depends on institutional support, interoperability, and long-term stakeholder engagement. Collectively, these projects illustrate how participatory DSS development can catalyse inclusive, science-based climate services across Europe.