Co-creation-methods and tools will be mapped systematically for the first time in a new EU project.
Innovation researchers from all over Europe recently gathered in Munich to celebrate the official launch of SCALINGS—the new EU Horizon 2020 project.
Over the next three years, researchers will for the first time systematically map how ten different European countries work with co-creation processes within robot technology and energy. They will, e.g., discuss which role co-creation will play in the future, and how co-creation is approached across countries, cultures, and technical solutions.
The project participants include the EuroTech Universities, a strategic alliance between the five leading technical universities in France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. TU Munich is the overall project lead.
Complex social challenges
“The project is the first of its kind to investigate whether there are social, cultural, or legislative differences between the countries which have an impact on how well co-creation methods and tools work. We will, among other things, look into how you can tailor co-creation tools to match the EU countries’ socio-cultural context. This will help to solve some of Europe’s complex climate and energy challenges,” says Sophie Nyborg, Postdoc at DTU Management Engineering, who is heading up the project at DTU.
Co-creation is based on the idea of solving complex social challenges by involving a wide range of groups such as universities, citizens, politicians, and businesses. In this way, co-creation can help to create innovative solutions—from a product, a service, a social invention to a system that is adapted to the citizens’ practices, wishes, and needs.
The EU project focuses on three types of co-creation: public procurement of innovative solutions, collaboration between universities, the business community, and public authorities (triple helix)—as well as open laboratories and ‘living labs’. EnergyLab Nordhavn is an example of a living lab and a triple helix collaboration that demonstrates—at full-scale—how electricity and heat, energy-efficient buildings and electricity transport can be integrated into an intelligent, flexible, and optimized energy system.