Over the past decade, innovation theory and practice has taken a decisive turn towards "co-creation." There is broad recognition that complex societal challenges cannot be solved through technical solutions alone, but require scientists and engineers to work together with users, businesses, and government. Publics are increasingly engaged “upstream” in research and development to enable more democratic forms of innovation, unlock new sources of knowledge, and help craft socially robust solutions. In the private sector, many companies are moving to more open and inclusive forms of innovation such as research partnerships, mass customization, crowdsourcing, or start-up garages. Municipalities and companies are increasingly developing technology in-situ with users and companies through “living-labs” settings or shape innovation through pre-commercial procurement.
Yet, this mainstreaming of "co-creation" across Europe poses new challenges to better understand “co-creation processes and outcomes under various cultural, societal and regulatory backgrounds to allow better-targeted policy support” (SwafS-13-17). To date, no systematic studies exist that detail how co-creation instruments operate under different socio-cultural conditions, i.e. if “best practices” will be effective elsewhere or if the resulting products and services are compatible with new markets. For example, a test-bed site on smart urban energy use might lead to fundamentally different outcomes in Spain and Denmark, representing different lifestyles, economies, infrastructures, and sociocultural values, norms, and preferences. Likewise, a robot delivering health care services to patients in a local hospital in Spain might not easily translate to a German hospital, reflecting different economic, cultural, and regulatory contexts.
SCALINGS addresses the challenge of mainstreaming co-creation across a diverse Europe head-on: With a comparative, embedded and experimental research design, SCALINGS will investigate the implementation, uptake, and outcomes of three co-creation instruments (public procurement of innovation, co-creation facilities, and living labs) in two technical domains (robotics and urban energy) across 10 countries. Using comparative case studies and experimental interventions, the project will explore if and how these instruments and their outcomes can be generalized, transferred, or scaled up to new socio-cultural, economic, or institutional conditions. Based on our findings, we will develop two new theoretical frameworks to guide the wider dissemination and better understand the limits of co-creation. We will support EU innovation policy by contributing to roadmapping efforts. Together with our engineering partners, we will co-create enhanced practices that feed directly back into their work and strategy.
