Urban Living Labs as an instrument for co-creating sustainable cities? – Reflections on Hamburg and Milan in the CLEVER Cities project

This research focuses on the role that Urban Living Labs can play in facilitating urban transformation through co-production, and asks how far these ULLs can deliver policy changes and transition of the urban governance setting. As a basis for this research, the authors analyse co-creative transdisciplinary research pro-cesses in the CLEVER Cities project (Horizon 2020). Co-production and co-creation are terms that are lately populating the academia with the intent to define the active engagement of citizens in shaping public ser-vices (Brandsen & Honingh 2018). Beyond the discussion on the actual signifi-cance of the two terms, such engagement approaches have been extensively deployed for implementing urban transformations in spatial planning (Davis & An-drew 2017; Puerari et al. 2018; Loorbach et al. (eds.) 2016). On this theme, en-gagement can occur through different formats and scales, of which the most com-mon are Urban Living Labs (ULL). The ULL concept is currently reaching its peak of glory as a tool for commonly advancing urban regeneration projects (Fran-tzeskaki & Kabisch 2016; Chronéer et al. 2021). ULLs are often used for fostering participation of various stakeholders in a complete co-creation process towards the achievement of a shared consensus and a more open transparent decision-making, thus advancing urban resilience wherein an important role is reserved to citizens and local groups of interest. The plethora of interests and expertise sum-moned in ULLs is expected to bring to the fore high levels of social innovation, while generating a sense of belonging and empowerment among the participants (Rizzo et al. 2021; AMS 2021). Given the specificity of such an environment, the complexity of governing the process of a ULL is enormous and steering its’ development requires mostly a relevant effort. Furthermore, the challenges addressed within ULLs are often re-lated to localised conditions and are therefore directed to generate extremely place-based social and/or physical transformations. However, it can be argued that this specificity could limit the transposition of lessons learned of the urban governance process and its outcomes towards the up-take of such practices 20 (Bisschops & Beunen 2019; cf. Arlati et al. 2021). In fact, scholars are still inves-tigating the pros and cons of conducting co-creation in ULLs versus a more clas-sic participation process (Arnstein 1969). On one hand, resources and time hori-zons dedicated to the ULLs often limit the effectiveness of the same, restricting ‘de facto’ their impacts on a localised specific context. On the other hand, it is still not clear how far ULLs could be adopted as a common practice within the local urban governance settings (Veeckman & Temmerman 2021). Further, the trans-lation of such lessons are dependent on the degree of openness and resilience of the governance structure to accept modifications and adapt to new structural changes demanded from an ULL (Frantzeskaki & Rok 2018). In this article we consider ULL as a container of change, wherein different stake-holders actively engaged themselves with the common objective of reaching a just sustainable urban regeneration. This research article aims to focus on these urban transformation dynamics, in particular to which extent the results from ULLs can deliver policy changes, which implies systematic governance structure changes as well. The analysis is to be done through an ex-post evaluation for the co-creation processes within the ULLs formats that occurred within the Horizon 2020 project CLEVER Cities. Within the project framework, a co-creation path-way tailored-made for integrating Nature-based Solutions in urban regeneration processes was implemented and is used for improving inclusivity (Mahmoud & Morello 2021; Arlati et al. 2021). Through a comparative case study, the evalua-tion will include: 1) the analysis of stakeholders engaged in the co-creation pro-cess and their relationships based on the stakeholder network theory; 2) the shared governance model and degree of co-creation openness and flexibility; and 3) the co-benefits expected to be generated from the collaborative process with regard to social impact (e.g. emerging social bonds and cohesion, and placemak-ing). Against this background, results will reflect in how far ULLs offer a well-grounded instrument for urban transition processes, and which restrictions and limitations have to be considered under the lenses of a social justice discourse (Curran and Hamilton 2012). Finally, conclusions will be drawn from the CLEVER Cities ULLs experience with respect to urban governance settings, introducing e.g. newly originated policies and procedures, and facilitation structures.