H2020 LIVERUR Project: Living Lab research concept in rural areas
- Type Project
- Status Filled
- Execution 2018 -2021
- Assigned Budget 4.107.005,00 €
- Scope Europeo
- Main source of financing H2020
- Project website LIVERUR
Living labs are open innovation ecosystems that prioritize user-centricity and combine simultaneous research and innovation processes through public-private partnerships. The strategic development of a rural living lab depends on establishing a sustainable partnership with stakeholders. However, the success of a living lab in a rural setting, along with its goals and ambitions, is determined by the specific context.
The EU-funded LIVERUR project aims to enhance the innovative business model of living labs in rural regions. It will conduct a socioeconomic analysis to identify, describe, and compare the differences between the new living lab approach and more traditional business approaches. By improving our understanding of business models in rural areas, LIVERUR aims to boost the potential for economic diversification in these regions.
Phase 1 consisted of an analysis of the rural living laboratory concept and the identification of existing rural business models across Europe.
In the second phase, LIVERUR developed a benchmark classification to list existing business concepts and models in terms of initial conditions, obstacles faced, enabling factors, financial mechanisms, added value generation, employment, and other environmental and social benefits, in order to leverage existing procedures.
After all the analysis, comparisons, and studies, Phase 3 worked on the creation and conceptualization of an entirely new business model concept: the Regional Circular Living Lab (RAIN) business model concept.
Phase 4 consisted of the creation of a Living Lab Territorial Community to bring together all necessary users and stakeholders for the pilot implementation, through an ecosystem of ICT-enabled services (RAIN Platform), while the last phase of the project consisted of the validation of the Rural Living Labs, which included testing and validating the operability of the Living Lab approach in rural areas using an open innovation approach in selected Pilot Regions supported by co-creation workshops with entrepreneurs and the elaboration of an ICT-enabled platform.
The implementation of the Rural Living Circular Labs demonstrated that the platform can benefit entrepreneurs by addressing the need to ensure long-term viability and sustainability, enriching core business activities in rural areas with RAIN principles.
A successful implementation of the LIVERUR pilots included:
- Robust training of regional facilitators to communicate the RAIN concept
- Open ecosystem network, identification and engagement of the most relevant stakeholders
- Innovative digital tools and a common platform for all regional initiatives
- Personal contact and trust-building measures, personification of services
- Leveraging regional resources, closing gaps in the value chain
- Conservation of the rural context, creation of a common identity
LIVERUR has also demonstrated that building strong stakeholder networks can enhance the benefits of Living Labs in terms of rural innovation, ensuring the critical mass necessary for their sustainability, while simultaneously considering the impacts of a globalized economy and the needs and demands of local everyday life.
LIVERUR is an EU-funded research and innovation project dedicated to improving existing business structures in rural areas. To this end, it supports farmers and small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises in implementing a circular economy approach in 13 selected pilot areas across Europe, as well as in selected countries in Africa and Asia. LIVERUR achieves this goal by expanding a specific, innovative business model, called Living Labs, in these rural regions. Living Labs are ecosystems that operate in a territorial context, integrating research and innovation processes in a public-private partnership and co-creation process with all relevant stakeholders in the territories.
The diverse and complex nature of rural areas and agricultural businesses in Europe requires EU policies that include and address all relevant stakeholders, while providing appropriate training and incentives for the use of public-private and citizen collaboration tools. Based on years of experience, the LIVERUR project proposes a set of key messages and policy recommendations based on the lessons learned during the initiative's development. Unique methods, such as the RAIN concept and the RAIN Entrepreneurial Tool, are presented as ready-to-use supports for current and future rural policies.
Overall, LIVERUR identified and compared the differences between Living Lab's new approach and more entrepreneurial, traditional approaches (mass production, price development, optimization of cost structures with companies, streamlining) to implement a circular economy in each territory, driven by waste reduction, new business creation, and the overall expansion of business opportunities for SMEs.
Finally, LIVERUR created an interactive online platform that includes videos with guidance from business and agricultural experts, relevant data from the region, support for the creation of linear and circular rural businesses, and financing opportunities.
LIVERUR seeks to expand an extremely innovative business model, called Living Labs, in rural regions. Living Labs are user-centered open innovation ecosystems that typically operate in a territorial context, integrating simultaneous research and innovation processes within a public-private partnership.
The basis for the strategic development of a rural Living Lab lies in establishing sustainable collaboration with stakeholders; users, policymakers, businesses, and researchers sign agreements that allow for long-term collaborations. However, the successful design of a Living Lab is likely to be highly influenced by the specific context of the Living Lab's rural environment and its specific goals and ambitions.
The LIVERUR project identifies Living Labs as innovative business models currently being developed in rural areas and will conduct a socioeconomic analysis to identify, describe, and compare the differences between the new Living Lab approach and more traditional, entrepreneurial approaches (mass production, price development, optimization of cost structures with companies, rationalization).
The LIVERUR project pays particular attention to Living Labs, as they foster more sustainable resource mobilization, improve cooperation between operators along the value chain, and generate new services. Living Labs utilize the concept of open innovation in a broader sense, with a success/failure rate determined by key empirical research factors. Since empirically based studies are still lacking, LIVERUR's short-term objective is to improve knowledge of business models that are growing in rural areas, including a deep understanding of their potential. In the long term, the project will increase the potential for rural economic diversification.
LIVERUR achieved its objectives by having perceptible effects at different levels of action. While LIVERUR initially primarily developed strategies and methodologies at the analytical, business model, and knowledge/community exchange levels, in later stages the analytical level encompassed the conceptualization of existing rural business models in the EU and regional areas, as well as the development of relevant benchmarking criteria and innovative comparison strategies. In the innovation phase, during the pilot implementation, the business level included the study of the living laboratory technique and the feasibility assessment of the integration process in the consortium territories, in addition to the development of a regional circular living laboratory business model.
At the operational level, LIVERUR contributed to the operationalization of the regional Circular Living Lab model through fully implemented pilots in 12 selected territories to demonstrate the feasibility and operability of the concept. Territorial guidelines were implemented, and a toolkit was integrated to facilitate the testing of the new business model.
At the capitalization level, the results of LIVERUR were disseminated beyond the consortium's areas, particularly in cooperation with other H2020 projects working on rural development, to ensure their transferability even after the development period ends. Each pilot area is ready to incorporate another nearby and similar area to initiate a process of exchanging good practices, even after the project ends. In addition, a mentoring activity will be carried out to help other territorial communities develop their own strategic plans.
In the long term, the results contributed to increasing the potential for rural economic diversification, added value, and job creation in various rural areas through the dissemination of promising business cases. Participating SMEs will become even more multifunctional, offering the following services: new services related to green infrastructure services; new products and services related to the agriculture-environment-tourism, as well as the environment-culture-tourism value chains; cooperation with the education system; and cooperation with regional rural development authorities. SMEs will reduce the water, energy, and CO2 footprints of their products and services and improve their environmental management systems.
Last but not least, LIVERUR provided new and innovative ways to deliver ecosystem services through innovative valorization methods. The LIVERUR consortium will continue to create a long-term platform for cooperation and knowledge among the Rural Life Laboratories, utilizing ICTs and lessons learned from implementing the circular economy principle.
Through its implemented Living Labs and RAIN business models, LIVERUR paid special attention to potential barriers that could successfully link socioeconomic status with gender equality and involve migrants, older adults, and people with disabilities in its activities.
- FUNDACION UNIVERSITARIA SAN ANTONIO (UCAM)
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