Influencers of Active Engagement in Living Lab Group Activities: A Transnational Pilot Study

Living lab methods depend on active engagement in activities to get real, lived experiences, views, and reactions. When setting up new user communities or collaborating across borders, living lab practitioners need to better understand how to optimize methods to ensure full and effective participant engagement. This study explored how to identify factors influencing how participants engage in living lab group activities. In Belgium, Ireland and Spain, new insights were collected regarding actual activities and facilitation approaches, activity format preferences of participants, as well as incentivisation for participant engagement. The findings have implications for group diversity, facilitator stance, and participation rewards. Establishing a safe and unbiased setting is crucial for a productive group meeting in living lab research, and this requires striking a balance between evidence-based methods for data collection and employing flexibility for adjustment to participant needs and preferences. The current pilot study improves the understanding of influencers of group dynamics and end-user preferences of living lab participants, providing an approach suitable for replication across other living lab settings to facilitate comprehension of local needs for tailored research protocols.