Living Labs Are the Silver Lining for Creating Sustainable Health and Care for the Future

Abstract

Aging populations and the consequent exponential rise in health care costs are a challenge to many developed societies. This paper provides insights to how the Living Labs methodology can address this challenge by involving citizen insights to drive co-creation innovation processes to secure a sustainable future in the healthcare services. The point of departure for this paper is Public Intelligence’ Living Lab methodology, which facilitates sharing knowledge between sectors, domains, and cultural differences. The paper provides evidence from two distinct implementations of the innovation design and compares the processes. The research shows that the Living Lab design is valuable in diverse contexts. Subsequently the paper is concluded by discussing the cross-cultural dissemination of the methodology in relation to prospected internationalization to Japan.