The Partners

• E-zavod, zavod za projektno svetovanje, raziskovanje in razvoj celovitih rešitev (Ptuj, Slovenia)
• University of Mariboru, Faculty of organizational sciences (Kranj, Slovenia)
• CyberForum e.v. (Karlsruhe, Germany)
• University of Vorarlberg (Dornbirn, Austria)
• Czech Centre for Science and Society (Prague, Czech Republic)
• Informatica Trentina SpA (Trento, Italy)
• Corvinno Technology Transfer Centre Nonprofit Public Ltd. (Budapest, Hungary)
• Technical University of Košice (Košice, Slovakia)
• Piedmont Region (Torino, Italy)
• Higher School of Management Konin (Konin, Poland)

Description

CentraLab is based on a promising approach that has emerged in the arena of ICT under the name “Living Lab”. In this model, technology R&D brings infrastructures into real-life contexts to enable a “co-design” process with end users. CentraLab adopts a bottom-up approach towards construction of the transnational, multi-level governance structure. Its networking philosophy is action-oriented, organic and open, using the pilot method to achieve a stable, sustainable configuration.

• early involvement of the end user in the innovation process,
• minimizing the innovation gap between technological solutions and end product and service placement on the market
• early evaluation of the socio-economic impacts of the development of new technologies.

As part of the project activities, 10 partners from 8 European countries explore the potential of the open innovation approach at two levels:

• at political level, with the aim of making recommendations on the added value of living laboratories in the management of regional innovation policy,
• at the implementation level, with the development and implementation of 10 pilot projects in the following thematic areas: energy, eco-tourism, micro SME networks, media and creativity, environment and education, climate change, waste management, rural development and e-health.