The second session, titled “Designing Tailored Living Lab Services for Innovators”, which is part of the Living Labs Training Series, took place on 9 July 2025. It focused on designing structured, user-oriented services that enable Living Labs to better support innovators, accelerate experimentation, and ensure sustainable operations.
This six part training program is specifically crafted for Living Lab managers, researchers, and innovation professionals. It brings together top experts in service design and real-world practitioners from across Europe. The last webinar featured contributions from:
- Marta I. De Los Ríos White, Head of Capacity Building and Research at ENoLL
- Despoina Petsani, Research Associate at AUTH’s Medical Physics and Digital Innovation Lab
- Francesca Sperandio, Junior Project Manager at ENoLL
What is Service Design?
Francesca Sperandio opened the session by introducing the central question: “What is Service Design?” She explained that Service Design is about intentionally planning and organizing all the different touchpoints and interactions—from users and staff to platforms and operations—that collectively make up a service.
- Service Design is human-centered, evidence-based, and follows an iterative, collaborative process.
- Living Labs, likewise, emphasize active user involvement, real-life experimentation, and co-creation.
Case Studies from the Thessaloniki Action for Health & Wellbeing Living Lab
In her turn, Despoina Petsani shared two concrete case studies from the Thessaloniki Action for Health & Wellbeing Living Lab, developed within the framework of the VITALISE project. VITALISE enables researchers from various disciplines to access European Living Lab infrastructures through Transnational Access.
These examples highlighted not only the innovative services developed—such as ASSURE, an AI tool for dysphagia detection, and HESTIA, a thermal monitoring system to support informal caregiving—but also the concrete resource needs involved in delivering them.
For each pilot, she presented a side-by-side comparison of time and personnel dedicated by internal and external teams. Internal refers to the Living Lab’s own staff, who are familiar with lab protocols, logistics, and stakeholder engagement, while external refers to visiting researchers granted access through the project.
The data showed needs for 170h/30d internal vs. 52h external for ASSURE project, and 121/28d internal vs. 14d external for HESTIA—demonstrating that effective Living Lab services require considerable coordination and time investment.
Structuring and Pricing Living Lab Services
Marta I. De Los Ríos White guided participants through a practical methodology for turning Living Lab activities into repeatable, well-defined services.
The structured 5-step Servive Design Process included:
- Discover: the phase of immersion, where tools like interviews, observations, and self-documentation help capture real user needs and contextual insights.
- Define: a period of analysis—making sense of the findings, spotting patterns, and setting a clear design challenge.
- Develop: the creative core of the process, where ideas are generated, sketched, and prototyped through both visual and tactile methods.
- Deliver: this stage transforms ideas into action—pitching, role-playing, testing, gathering feedback, and capturing learnings.
- Evolve: a forward-looking stage focused on scaling, building partnerships, tracking impact, and celebrating even subtle change.
Do you know how to price your services?
To close, Marta I. De Los Ríos White presented three guiding steps for Living Labs ready to define the value of what they offer. First, she encouraged participants to assess the value their services provide to innovators, including the time saved, risk reduced, and unique benefits delivered. Next, she stressed the importance of understanding internal costs—factoring in people’s time and expertise, specialized tools, resources, and overhead. Finally, she highlighted the need to align pricing strategies with the Living Lab’s broader mission and funding model, ensuring financial sustainability while staying true to core objectives.
What’s next?
The next session for Living Labs, “Navigating Legal, Ethical & Regulatory Frameworks,” will take place on July 23, 2025, at 15:00 CEST, and will approach the ethical, legal and regulatory frameworks, explores the sector-specific compliance and engages with regulatory bodies.