Regional Partnerships for Living Labs: the Case of Sicily and the MedLab Project

Abstract: This paper addresses the issue of how the Living Lab model can be integrated into regional development policy, through a “demand-pull” approach to innovation in which institutional innovation plays a key role in the form of bottom-up partnerships between a range of actors. The MedLab project, funded by the ERDF in the MED programme, addresses this issue with eight partners in seven Mediterranean regions. The paper first discusses the case of a concrete experience in building a regional Living Lab partnership in the Sicilian region and how the lessons learned shaped the MedLab approach and workplan. The first activities in MedLab are then presented as a more structured attempt at laying the ground for stable Living Lab governance mechanisms that will be tested in the project’s pilot projects. The ultimate aim is to permanently integrate the Living Lab approach as a transversal instrument of regional innovation policies in the Mediterranean basin, as a model for other regions in Europe.