[Commlist] CfA Living Labs // Journal of Science Communication

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*Living Labs Under Construction: Paradigms, Practices, and Perspectives 
of Public Science Communication and Participatory Science*

Special Issue Editors: /Caroline Wehrmann/, Science Education and 
Communication, TU Delft, The Netherlands; /Andreas Bischof/, Faculty for 
Computer Science, Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany; /Ingmar 
Rothe/, Department for Communication and Media Studies, Leipzig 
University, Germany; /Christian Pentzold/, Department for Communication 
and Media Studies, Leipzig University, Germany.

Full CfA here: 
https://jcom.sissa.it/special-issue-living-labs-under-construction-paradigms-practices-and-perspectives-public-science 


Living Labs galore. Involving citizens and other stakeholders in science 
endeavors and integrating them in the design of new technologies and 
scientific inquiry is a core aim of contemporary research and 
development. Living labs are prime places in the quest of science to be 
more inclusive and to open up to people from all walks of life, 
including politics, design, and culture. Promising to foster 
participation, collaboration and co-creation around science, living labs 
have been mushrooming across the academe, from STEM subjects to the 
humanities. In fact, they have become the token for an up-to-date 
science communication that is not satisfied with conveying expert-driven 
information but seeks an exchange with people that are addressed as the 
participants of, not just the audience for research.

Despite the keen interest and heavy investments into living labs, their 
epistemic underpinnings and conceptual grounding remain shaky. The many 
approaches and initiates, that are for instance connected in the 
European Network of Living Labs, do not follow a common idea or design, 
except the ambition to venture into the “real world” outside of labs and 
libraries. Moreover, little is known about the communicative and social 
processes happening at these sites and the ways, participation is being 
configurated. What is further missing is a critical view on the 
political schemes and ambitions around public engagement and living labs 
which have been the focus of especially European funding since 2006.

The Special Issue addresses this lack of conceptualization and rigorous 
analysis of the paradigmatic foundations and practical frameworks of 
living labs. Unlike other publications on living labs, the SI is not 
bound to a particular area of application but rather focuses on the 
communication and interaction happening there. It is interested in 
contributions that examine the ways living labs are constructed and 
operated so to fulfil the promise of open, active, and innovative public 
science engagement. Papers are welcome that query the underlying 
theories and normative assumptions of living labs, for instance 
regarding the varying notions of what makes for “productive” 
participation and “good” participants; it also involves thinking about 
other factors such a trust, agency, and expertise that come to bear upon 
the living lab experience. We also invite papers that present and 
discuss methods for studying the public engagement and public 
participation aspects of living labs and what kinds of insights they 
help to generate. The Special Issue should also provide a space to 
interrogate the key moments in the life cycle of living labs like the 
definition of problems and possible solutions, the identification of 
stakeholders and their needs, or the organization of their temporal 
order and social responsibilities. In particular, we encourage papers 
that that take a comparative look at the public science communication 
aspects of living labs in different scientific or societal contexts.

Along these topics, the Special Issue allows us to scrutinise the merits 
and pitfalls of an omnipresent science communication enterprise. It 
makes us rethink and reorganise how living labs are set up and operated. 
Define standards for what constitutes successful and sustainable 
integration and public engagement with science.

We invite research articles as well as practice insights and essays that 
fall within the scope of JCOM (i.e. relevant to science communication 
and public engagement with science). They could address but are not 
limited to the following themes:

  * Conceptualisations of living labs, their normative premises and
    public participatory ambitions
  * Overviews, comparisons, and critical discussions of living lab
    approaches, practices, and schemes
  * Reflections on the position of living labs in science communication
    paradigms, their connections to other forms of science communication
  * Indicators and parameters to assess the performance and impact of
    the public engagement or communication aspects of living labs
  * Evaluations and accounts of the quality and effects of citizen
    participation in living labs
  * Histories and genealogies of living lab initiatives across different
    science fields and territories also beyond Europe and the US
  * Obstacles and problems of living labs • Communicative and social
    processes within living labs as well as issues of trust, agency, and
    expertise
  * Methodologies and methods for studying living labs

*Timeline and procedure *

300-word abstracts (or article outlines) should be submitted by July 25, 
2022, to (livinglabs.specialissue /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(livinglabs.specialissue /at/ gmail.com)>

The abstract should articulate:

 1. the issue or research question to be discussed
 2. the methodological or critical framework used, and
 3. the expected findings or conclusions.

The abstract must indicate whether the contribution is intended as a 
research article (typically 5,000 to 7,500 words), a practice insight 
(3,000 to 5,000 words), or an essay (3,500 to 4,500 words). Feel free to 
consult with the Special Issue Editors about your article ideas and 
potential angles or approaches. Decisions will be communicated to the 
authors by August 30, 2022. Invited paper submissions, adhering to the 
journal’s style guide, will be due November 30, 2022, and will be 
submitted directly to the submission site for Journal of Science 
Communication: https://jcom.sissa.it/jcom/index.jsp 
<https://jcom.sissa.it/jcom/index.jsp> where they will undergo peer 
review following the usual procedures of the Journal of Science 
Communication. Please note that the invitation to submit a full article 
does not guarantee acceptance into the special issue.

The special issue is planned to come out in April or May 2023.

No payment from the authors will be required.

Contact: (christian.pentzold /at/ uni-leipzig.de) 
<mailto:(christian.pentzold /at/ uni-leipzig.de)>


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