Living labs as ‘agents for change’

Highlights This special issue develops understandings of how living labs (LLs) build capacity among stakeholders, reshape spaces, and influence governance to support civic resilience and ecological transition. It highlights the role of LLs in empowering new and existing actors, mediating between diverse stakeholders, and fostering bottom-up agency for change. While many spatial LLs focus on urban contexts, this special issue calls for more iterations in the Global South, rural areas and practitioner-led initiatives. LLs can lay the social, institutional and material groundwork for future change in the built environment. This special issue underscores LLs’ contribution to governance innovation, particularly through quadruple helix engagement that brings together public authorities, industry, academia and civil society. By catalysing policy learning and multi-actor coordination, LLs can influence how transitions are organised and implemented. As interest in LLs grows, the special issue argues for embracing conceptual diversity and reframing LLs not merely as methodological tools but as forms of social and civic infrastructure. Their transformative potential, however, depends on sustained funding, long-term commitment, inclusive practices, mediation ecologies and attention to power dynamics. Without these conditions, LLs risk reinforcing inequalities or remaining limited to short-term, unscalable projects. Policy frameworks are called for that prioritise learning and scaling up, and that research approaches remain accountable to the uneven, long-term nature of socio-ecological transitions.