The Co-production of Social Innovation: The Case of Living Lab

Our article aims to reflect on some key concepts that have emerged in the recent literature on innovation. In particular, it will seek convergence between social and open innovation within the framework of Smart Cities. The Smart cities are embedded in the last 20 years processes of change that have altered conditions and modalities of innovation and knowledge generation. The city is still, like Robert Park in 1915, the “social laboratory” par excellence for the study of human behavior in a modern urban environment. If we consider recent debate on Smart city definition, we can find that ICT can be a powerful tool for building the collaborative digital environment that enhances the intelligent capacity of localities [30]. In that sense we can consider use the most used definition: “a city may be called smart when investments in human and social capital and traditional (transport) and modern (ICT) communication infrastructure fuel sustainable economic development and a high quality of life, with a wise management of natural resources, through participatory governance”. Early as at this definition we can find the pillars of our reflection: the innovation as social innovation, the new role of the 2.0 citizen–public, the issue of governance.