What’s a Living Lab all about?
- Living labs have been described as a methodology, an ecosystem and a community; they are co-creating, innovation-exploring, cross-sector collaboration spaces where real world user-focused sustainable design is key.
- Practically, when you are part of a living lab you will be participating in a process which involves people from different settings and experiences sharing their understanding of the subject, developing and building a joint way of working, to achieve the agreed aim and consolidate the approach.
- It’s people-focused, using an open and creative approach, to deliver benefits for participants and for ongoing policy and practice.
Labs, labs, labs: Living labs and other ways of bringing people together to share challenges, explore and test innovative solutions
What’s the aim / intended outcome?
The idea to explore a Living Lab came out of the BCUHB Research and Innovation Strategy and fits well with the setting up of the new North Wales Research Innovation and Improvement Coordination Hub. The initial aims are:
1. To understand the process of a Living Lab and equip participants to be able to use the techniques in their work, and
2. To gain a common understanding of what the Research, Innovation and Improvement agenda is and means to us all in health and social care
These can be revised to become joint aims by all participants collectively during the first workshop.
What will I get out of it?
You’ll have the opportunity to move through the Living Labs process, experience how it works and feel the benefits of being part of it – which you can then take back into your own field or setting. You’ll also be able to contribute to and consolidate a definition of innovation and research that works for us across the North Wales partners, which we can use in development of the hub.
What’s involved, how much time do I need to commit?
The Living Lab process involves three stages – to Discover the knowledge and aims, Develop prototypes and test concepts, and to Deploy learnings into a sustainable appropriate approach for the future. The Innovation Agency (Academic Health Science Network for the North West Coast – part of the innovation arm of the NHS) Coaching Academy will support us in these workshops.
The total time commitment is one day (over two half day sessions) a month for three months. There will be some ‘in-between activity’, to be decided during the sessions, recognising that this needs to demand minimal time given everyone’s busy schedules.
The workshops will build on each other so the same people are asked to attend all the sessions.
Who else will be in the sessions?
The workshops work best with a broad mix of people and roles. It is important that the group includes people who are in a position to take forward the learnings and actions in their respective organisations. We envisage participants from across health and social care and from different settings – so this could be senior academics, network leaders, directors or senior managers in health/social care, practitioners who occupy leadership roles and more.
When will the workshops run?
The workshops are currently planned for two half days in December (2nd, 9th), two in January (13th, 20th), and two in February (17th, 24th).
Is there a cost?
No, the workshops are fully funded by the Research, Innovation and Improvement Hub.
Do I need access to any tech to take part?
For the foreseeable future, everything is online so you’ll need a computer, laptop or mobile device and an internet connection. The video conferencing package we use might be Teams, Zoom or similar. We’ll send you everything you need beforehand and tech support will be available during the sessions to keep us on track.
We know that there are some issues with health colleagues using Zoom.
Where do I sign up!
To express an interest in this, email Ffion.Davies@denbighshire.gov.uk by Thursday 29 October. We will then send you the registration link. Places are limited so we will allocate them to make sure there’s a good mix of people from health and social care.
Please let us know if you have any access needs, such as receiving event materials in advance and/or in a particular format.
