The deliverable D4.10: Limerick Innovation Lab Solutions Catalogue 2 was submitted by University of Limerick and SE with contributions from NTNU, LCCC, COL, MPOWER, and UL in June 2022. The executive summary of the deliverable is available below and the full deliverable is at the end for download:
“This catalogue is the second of two catalogues documenting Innovation Lab Solutions developed through implementation of the +CityxChange Innovation Playground in Limerick.
The objective of establishing an Innovation Playground in Limerick’s +CityxChange Demonstration Area is to enable collaborations between Limerick City and County Council, energy providers, businesses, academia and citizens to test and prototype innovative ideas to allow a movement towards the co-creation of DPEBs (Distributed Positive Energy Blocks) and PEDs (Positive Energy Districts).
A +CityxChange Innovation Playground is defined as a designated area in a city where activities and physical and virtual places related to innovation are assembled in a systematic way to facilitate collaboration, empower citizens, and find new ways to address challenges that matter to people (Mee & Crowe, 2020). An Innovation Playground comprises a System of ‘places’, ‘activities’, ‘data’ and ‘enabling mechanisms’ – four interrelated elements that generate the ingredients of a Localised Innovation Playground and enable Innovation Playground Journeys of observation, sensemaking, co-design and prototyping.
Implementation of the Innovation Playground in Limerick initially focussed on a series of Do-It-Together workshops and Open Innovation Calls integrated into the calendar of community participation events developed in Task 4.3 Community-led Open Innovation. In this second year, D3.6: Framework for DPEB Innovation Labs (Fitzgerald et. al, 2020) has been incorporated into Innovation Playground (IP) implementation with the objective to cultivate an open innovation ecosystem in Limerick. In addition to creating a physical space for digital innovation– the Citizen Innovation Lab – this framework introduced key open innovation concepts to Innovation Playground implementation. These include collaborative governance of the Innovation Playground; orchestration of the innovation ecosystem through an innovation agenda and a co-created programme of engagement; positive cycles of collaboration; serendipity and network effects.
Through embracing these concepts, linkages between the Innovation Playground and other +Limerick Demonstration Projects increased and the potential for the integrated operation of the six +CityxChange CommunityxChange frameworks to act as a platform for continuing collaboration was observed.
A Citizen Innovation Lab digital platform – https://citizeninnovationlab.ie/ – has been developed as a repository of Innovation Lab Solutions. This repository is also part of this Catalogue, and this document will refer to the platform regularly. The Solutions are presented as Stories of peoples’ interactions with the Citizen Innovation Lab and Innovation Playground to support replication and scaling up of the activities and solutions described. The Stories are also mapped against particular UN SDGs. The specific UN SDGs were identified and prioritised by the people of Limerick during the creation of a Bold City Vision, which in Limerick has been incorporated into the Limerick City and County Council Development Plan process. “