September 2025 – Evolve2Care

What makes a Living Lab official? Highlights from the 5th webinar

On September 10, 2025, the EVOLVE2CARE Training Series for Living Labs continued with its fifth session, focusing on one of the most defining aspects of Living Labs: certification and standardization. Delivered by Gabriella Quaranta and Alessandra Tricarico of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), the session unpacked not only the why of certification, but also the how—from evaluation frameworks and tools, to good practices and lessons learned.

Why certification matters

As Gabriella Quaranta explained, ENoLL certification for Living Labs is widely regarded as a global standard for user-driven innovation, reflecting a structural and methodological assessment of their maturity as an innovation ecosystem.

Harmonization: What is it?

A central theme of the session was harmonization. Gabriella Quaranta highlighted that ENoLL has developed a structured and comprehensive system to assess the maturity, sustainability, and impact of Living Labs. By harmonizing evaluations, ENoLL ensures consistency and quality assurance, while also providing guidance for improvement, enabling global collaboration, transparency, and accountability, and strengthening long-term sustainability.

This harmonized evaluation framework is built around six evaluation chapters, covering:

Strategy: Examines macro-level issues such as multi-stakeholder participation, the orchestration role of the Living Lab, collaboration strategies, and its overall business model.
Users & reality: Looks at collaboration with users, levels of engagement, and participation, with emphasis on iterative processes in real-life contexts and the correct use of tools and methods.
Operations: Evaluates how a Living Lab manages its operations, including infrastructure, equipment, and human resources.
Openness: Reviews the openness of processes, partnerships, and projects, as well as practices for feedback and intellectual property protection.
Value & Impact: Focuses on the development of co-created values and the identification of impact clusters generated by the Living Lab for its stakeholders.
Stability & Scale-up: Assesses financial and organizational stability, long-term sustainability, and the replication of strategies and practices across ecosystems.

Together, these chapters translate into 15 evaluation criteria, forming the backbone of certification.

Tools for Evaluation: Self-assessment and qualitative application

Certification is supported by two complementary tools, as Alessandra Tricarico pointed:

Self-Assessment Tool: A quantitative instrument that allows Livin Labs to assess their maturity and sustainability and following that gives them a customized evaluation report.

Qualitative Application Form: A narrative-based tool where applicants describe governance structures, business plans, internal and external communication, human resources, projects, available equipment and infrastructure, innovation partnerships and processes, and ownership of results. It is limited to 20 pages (plus annexes) and allows supplementary materials. Here, evaluators look not only at facts but also at the story of the Living Lab’s vision and practice.

By combining these two, certification captures both hard data and contextual insights, ensuring fairness, depth, and comparability.

Tips & good practices

To help applicants succeed, the speakers shared practical advice drawn from years of experience evaluating Living Labs:

Spend enough time preparing a proper assessment and compiling all supporting material.
Start working in advance, avoiding last-minute submissions.
In the qualitative application form, answer each question, keep responses to one page (excluding visuals), and ensure all documents are in English.
Provide a clear explanation of governance structures.
Prepare a business plan that transparently presents future strategies.
Detail human resources, specifying who is involved, in what roles, and with what expertise.
Describe equipment and infrastructure, emphasizing availability and access.
Highlight collaboration strategies, showing how diverse stakeholders are engaged beyond single-project contexts.

These tips underscored the importance of thoroughness, clarity, and forward-looking planning in the application process

What’s next?

The EVOLVE2CARE Training Series will conclude with its final webinar: “Measuring Impact & Evaluating Success” on September 24, 2025, at 15:00 CEST. This closing session will guide participants in defining key performance indicators (KPIs), assessing service design, and measuring the broader impact of Living Lab activities.

Accelup in focus | Interview with the Project Coordination team of EVOLVE2CARE

As the EVOLVE2CARE Open Call continues to welcome applications from HealthTech innovators across Europe in order to matchmaking with Health and Wellbeing Living Labs and test their digital HealthTech solutions, one platform stands at the heart of the collaboration process: Accelup. Designed to streamline matchmaking, Accelup ensures that project proposals meet the right expertise, infrastructure, and support. In this interview, Evdokimos Konstantinidis, Project Coordinator, and Despoina Petsani, Project Mission Coordinator, share how Accelup works, what makes it unique, and why it’s a key enabler for co-creation and real-world validation in the EVOLVE2CARE ecosystem.

Read on to discover how Accelup is shaping collaboration in EVOLVE2CARE:

1. What is the Accelup platform, and how does it help innovators and Living Labs collaborate more effectively?

The Accelup platform is a digital matchmaking platform designed to connect innovators with Living Lab infrastructures. The platform offers the possibility for the innovator to upload a specific project specifying the services that would be required for its completion. For the design of the platform, a continuous assessment of stakeholder needs, existing tools and frameworks has been conducted, ensuring improved efficiency for the collaboration of the two parties.

2. How is it used within the EVOLVE2CARE project?

Within the EVOLVE2CARE project, the primary objective is to facilitate matchmaking between Health Tech companies and Living Labs. Rather than requiring innovators to independently identify a suitable Living Lab, Accelup facilitates improved communication and ensures that the matching process is streamlined, thereby relieving innovators of the need to undertake this task on their own. Therefore, it is designed to bring users with diverse research on demand needs together with Living Labs to co-develop, validate, and test innovative HealthTech solutions in real-life conditions.

3. Please give us a simple overview of how Accelup works.
Accelup enables innovators to create projects by submitting key details such as title, description, services required, budget range, and bid. ENoLL Certified Living Labs can then browse these projects, review the information provided, and submit bids with the required amount to perform the project, creating a structured and transparent matchmaking process.

4. Are there other platforms that aim to connect innovators with Living Labs? If so, what makes Accelup stand out in this space?

Yes, there are some other matchmaking tools that can be used in a similar way as Accelup. Such tools involve both digital and methodological approaches that facilitate the matchmaking process. However, Accelup’s mission is to enable transparent and effective matchmaking between innovators and Living Labs. Accelup is the only platform that gives the opportunity to innovators to get in contact with ENoLL Certified Living Labs that can facilitate their work. ENoLL certification provides a quality seal so that the innovators know that they will receive high-quality Living Lab services.

5. And finally, how is Accelup currently supporting the EVOLVE2CARE Open Call?

Accelup is the main form of connection of the two parties, with the innovator being given the opportunity to select a desired Living Lab. EVOLVE2CARE supports the collaboration by providing €5,000 to the selected Living Lab to perform the work that the innovator requested.

Ready to take the next step?

If you’re a HealthTech innovator looking to validate your solution or a Living Lab eager to collaborate on cutting-edge projects, join the EVOLVE2CARE Open Call and experience the power of Accelup matchmaking.

Accelup coordination interview team

How HealthTech innovators can fundraise with confidence

The fifth session of the EVOLVE2CARE Training Series for HealthTech Innovators and Researchers took place on 4 September 2025, delivering a deep and practical dive into the realities of startup fundraising. Led by Adriane Thrash, the session “Fundraising & Pitching: An Investor’s Guide” offered a no-nonsense guide to what investors actually look for—and how innovators can meet those expectations with clarity, strategy, and confidence.

One of the core themes of the session was understanding the different types of investors and what each brings to the table. Adriane Thrash broke down the key categories:

Angel Investors: Often the first to believe in a startup, angel investors typically invest at early stages. They are usually more flexible and founder-friendly but offer limited capital and may not always bring sector-specific expertise.
Venture Capitalists (VCs): VCs look for high-growth potential and scalability. They expect aggressive expansion, clear exit strategies, and strong returns. Their involvement often comes with structured oversight and performance expectations.
Corporate Investors: These investors seek strategic alignment with their own business goals. They may offer more than capital—such as access to distribution channels, technical resources, or regulatory support—but their priorities may shift based on internal strategy.
Impact Investors: Focused on measurable social or health outcomes alongside financial returns, impact investors are particularly relevant in HealthTech. They value mission-driven innovation and often require robust impact metrics.
Public funding sources: These include grants, subsidies, and innovation programs from national or EU-level institutions. While non-dilutive and mission-aligned, public funding often comes with strict eligibility criteria, reporting obligations, and longer timelines. Innovators must be prepared to demonstrate societal value, policy alignment, and long-term sustainability.

Choosing the right type of investor is as important as securing the funding itself.

Fundraising is a strategy, not serendipity

Adriane Thrash emphasized that fundraising is not about luck or charm—it’s about building a strategic plan that aligns with your startup’s stage, goals, and long-term vision. Innovators must understand their business fundamentals and be able to communicate them effectively.

Know your numbers — and your market

Investors want facts. That means knowing your TAM (Total Addressable Market), SAM (Serviceable Addressable Market), SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market), your projected growth, your burn rate, and your financial runway.

Transparency builds trust

One of the most important lessons: don’t hide problems. Investors are not deterred by challenges—they’re deterred by surprises. Be upfront about risks, gaps, and what you’re still figuring out. A founder who can clearly articulate both strengths and weaknesses earns credibility.

Pitching is communication

A strong pitch is built on clarity, confidence, and relevance. Adriane Thrash encouraged innovators to focus on storytelling—connecting the problem, solution, team, and market in a way that resonates. Avoid jargon, be concise, and tailor your message to the investor’s perspective.

Prepare for due diligence

Fundraising doesn’t end with the pitch. Adriane Thrash highlighted the importance of being ready for due diligence—the process where investors validate your claims, assess risks, and examine your operations. Innovators should have their data room organized, with financials, legal documents, team bios, and product details ready to share.

What’s next?

The final session of the EVOLVE2CARE Training Series for HealthTech Innovators and Researchers, titled “Measuring Impact & Scaling Pilots — Driving Evidence-Based Growth in Living Labs,” will take place on 19 September 2025 at 15:00 CEST. It will focus on helping innovators define success through SMART metrics, design effective pilot evaluations, and use data to demonstrate real-world impact. Led by Despoina Petsani, ThessAHALL Project Manager at AUTH, the session will guide participants in generating the kind of evidence that funders, policymakers, and partners require to support and scale innovation.

fundraising innovators investors pitching recap webinar

Communication as the engine of innovation in Living Labs

The fourth session of the “Trainings on Service Design for Living Labs,” held on September 3, 2025, focused on building innovation networks and engaging stakeholders in meaningful ways. Titled “Building Innovation Networks: Communication and Engagement”, the webinar brought together four speakers who shared practical cases, conceptual frameworks, and tools for stakeholder engagement within Living Lab ecosystems.

Clara Garcia Blanch, Pilot Test Manager at the Social Digital Lab (Suara), opened the session with practical reflections on identifying and engaging stakeholders in co-creation processes. She stressed that while visible actors are crucial, hidden stakeholders often influence project outcomes in unexpected ways. Drawing from her experience, she underlined the importance of mapping, listening, and uncovering less obvious contributors in order to design inclusive and sustainable innovations.

Leen Broeckx, Panel Manager at LiCalab, presented how her organization structures stakeholder engagement in health and care innovation. LiCalab operates test environments involving citizens and care professionals, drawn from its own database, in real-life settings, and works in close collaboration with hospitals, residential care centres, and home care services. Leen explained how their stakeholders are categorized into internal and external, how their stakeholder analysis uses approaches such as power/interest grids to position actors and design suitable engagement activities. She described the identifying needs process, which includes workshops, expert interviews, and inspiration sessions. As an example, she presented the “Orion” dementia care case, where staff and users tested smart technologies such as bed sensors and smart lamps.

Marta I. De Los Ríos White, representing the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), provided the theoretical foundation for stakeholder engagement. She defined categories such as internal vs. external, primary vs. secondary, and direct vs. indirect stakeholders, while clarifying distinctions between stakeholders, users, and customers. Marta also highlighted the role of the Quadruple Helix Model, which positions the public sector, businesses, education and research, and civil society as central actors.

The instructor also shared practical tips and tricks for effective communication with stakeholders:

Be transparent: Clear communication builds trust and credibility.
Be adaptable: Be prepared to adjust communication strategies as projects evolve and stakeholder needs shift.
Ensure accessibility: Consider potential language barriers and disabilities by developing inclusive strategies.
Aim for two-way communication: Establish mechanisms for feedback and input rather than one-way dissemination.
Be present and responsive: Actively listen to stakeholder concerns, questions, and suggestions, and respond promptly.

Finally, she explained why citizens are essential stakeholders, because they:

Align the community’s projects with real local needs
Secure people’s long-term support to the community
Ensure social acceptance
Ensure transparency and accountability in decision-making and community operations
Empower people to make informed decisions
Boost innovation and creativity, bringing fresh ideas and solutions
Stimulate economic benefits for the people, such as job creation within the community

Concluding the session, the focus shifted to the Thessaloniki Active and Healthy Ageing Living Lab (Thess-AHALL), presented by Despoina Petsani, Research Associate at the AUTH Medical Physics and Digital Innovation Lab, showcasing how long-term citizen engagement and structured tools can transform a Living Lab into a robust innovation ecosystem. Despoina presented outcomes from projects such as Long Lasting Memories, showing impacts in cognitive and physical training. She also showcased practical tools: Accelup, a collaboration platform for innovators and Living Labs; PaneLab, a panel management platform; and a methodological guide (partners of experience) for citizen involvement. Thess-AHALL’s work demonstrates how trust, continuity, and structured tools help Living Labs evolve into strong innovation ecosystems.

What's next?

The training series will continue with its fifth session on Certification & Standardization of Living Labs, taking place on September 10, 2025, at 15:00 CEST. This upcoming webinar will explore the essential requirements for certification, the benefits of achieving it, and the international recognition it brings to Living Labs.

communication engagement innovation Living Labs webinar