Cross-border Living Labs Networks to Support SMEs Accessing New Markets.

In the last years there has been an increasing number of Living Labs throughout Europe, which are gradually forming a vibrant and still growing community. Several Living Lab networks have been set up on the European, the regional, and the national levels which mainly exchange high-level principles and best practices for individual Living Lab set-up and implementation. This paper focuses on the next steps that these networks must take in order to support SMEs for innovation and gaining access to new markets. The paper presents a methodology framework for cross-border living labs networks supporting SMEs based on network management, which uses results from four cross-border living labs networking experiments in four different settings. The methodology identifies and addresses key challenges for cross-border living labs networking in each setting. The paper presents initial results of methodology development and discusses various challenges in applying the methodology framework to the specific context of homecare and independent living solutions.