Purpose – Urban Living Labs (ULLs) are emerging as user driven, open innovation environments characterized by a strong emphasis on knowledge creation. In ULLs innovation arises by the activation of collective awareness and individual learning processes, which ultimately lead to large-scale behavioural change. How this takes place is often the result of complex and concurrent dynamics of several distinct elements of the socio-spatial system that we see embedded in a city or neighbourhood. This paper aims at exploring the link between knowledge production and behavioural change, using concept of “triple loop learning” (Tosey et al., 2012) as theoretical lens. Design/methodology/approach – How triple loop learning occurs in ULLs is the fundamental question of our research. There must contexts transformed into proper learning environments, where people reflect together while individually engaging on the co-design of solutions that are then collectively implemented and assessed. In order to explore the LLs potential for urban innovation, the authors adopt the SECI model (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) to map “triple loop learning” and link learning cycles to behavioural changes referring to the results of the Periphèria project funded under the CIP (ICT-PSP) program. Originality/value – Innovation systems have been, and still are, widely studied and analysed in the perspective of sustainability. Similarly, it is widely shared that cities, and in general urban systems, are the most promising environments to respond to the global challenge of sustainability by appropriately developed solutions. Despite the above, little attention has been paid to the links between innovation and durable behavioural change in urban communities. The paper aims at filling in this gap by highlighting the importance of shared experiments, typical of ULLs, in driving (triple-loop) learning processes able to make innovation sustainable, from the individual up to the collective scale. Practical implications – The paper aims at strengthening the value of ULLs and social innovation in support of public service improvement and/or radical change in groups and societies. The resulting methodological framework can be easily translated by public administrators in the perspective of public services innovation. ULLs, in fact, are demonstrating to be highly productive environments, dense in opportunities for collective learning: here learning is not limited to the most active citizens but also involves local government representatives, who can continuously check their own way to interpret public roles by testing new opportunities for sustainable development together with the citizens, thus becoming direct agents of innovation.
Keywords – Urban Living Labs, Social Innovation, Public Service, Collective Learning, Behavioural Change