Living labs in health innovation: Critical factors in their application

The focus of this paper is on living labs for health innovation. Health care (cure) systems are under pressure as a consequence of the ageing population and fast increasing population with chronic conditions, in a situation of decreasing financial budgets. At the same time, the valorization of health inventions is stumbled by many blocks. Living labs as an innovation tool, whether conceived as delimited environments for co-creation and development or as local/regional platforms, may offer various solutions. The paper identifies factors that hamper the valorization of knowledge in general and it identifies critical factors in the application of medical living labs, using the literature and five case studies.