Platform-level Living Lab Canvas: A tool to support the sustainable management of living labs for social transformation

This study focuses on living labs as ‘platforms for co-creation (i.e., platform-level living labs), in which multiple co-creation projects on diverse social issues are promoted through mutual interaction among them. The long-term operation of such a platform-level living lab is important for achieving social innovation and transformation through the living lab approach; however, methods and tools to support its sustainable management and operation have not been developed. Therefore, this study attempts to develop a canvas tool to support the sustainable operation and management of a platform-level living lab. It does so based on the qualitative analysis of data collected from in-depth interviews conducted with experts who have organized actual cases of long-term practicing platform-level living labs in Japan. We also conduct the case-based application of the developed canvas tool and find that the tool is useful in that it enables us to consider various perspectives that are important when setting up and managing a platform-level living lab. This study also provides a ‘starting point’ for further discussions on a methodology for the integrated use of multi-level canvases in the sustainable management of platform-level living labs.