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This paper aims to share the experience of a collaborative platform for social innovation (SI) in urban governance in Brussels (Belgium) and to formulate recommendations for future initiatives.

The publicly funded collaborative platform “Brussels by us”, which aimed to improve the quality of life in specific neighbourhoods in Brussels (Belgium), is presented as a case study for SI in urban governance. The case study is detailed according to four dimensions based on the SI and living lab literature.

While the initiative appeared to be a successful exploration platform for collaborative urban governance, it did not evolve into concrete experimentation nor implementation of the solutions. Possible explanations and recommendations are formulated.

The findings of this paper are based on the experience of a one-year initiative. The results should be completed by similar case studies of longitudinal initiatives, and with other levels of implementation such as experimentation and concrete implementation of solutions.

This paper presents a concrete case study of a collaborative platform implemented in a specific neighbourhood in Brussels (Belgium). Its digital and offline approach can help other practitioners, scholars and public institutions to experiment with the living lab methodology for the co-ideation of solution in urban governance. The four-dimensional framework presented in the study can provide future initiatives with a structured reporting and analysis framework, unifying and strengthening know-how in the domain of SI.

The European H2020 Families_Share project aims at offering a grass-root approach and a co-designed platform supporting families for sharing time and tasks related to childcare, parenting, after-school and leisure activities and other household tasks. To achieve this objective, the Families_Share project has been built on current practices which are already leveraging on mutual help and support among families, such as Time Banks, Social Streets and self-organizing networks of parents active at the neighbourhood level and seek to harness the potential of ICT networks and mobile technologies to increase the effectiveness of participatory innovation. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss the Families_Share methodology and platform, as well as the results obtained by several partecipating communities in different European countries.

This paper discusses how the Families Share approach (CAPS project, Horizon 2020) is bringing the sharing economy to childcare. Families Share developed a co-caring approach and a co-designed digital welfare platform to support parents with sharing time and tasks related to childcare, after-school and leisure activities. Families Share conducted two iterative pilot experiments and related socio-economic evaluations in six European cities. More than 3,000 citizens were engaged in the co-design process through their local community organizations and more than 1,700 parents and children actively experimented with the approach by organizing collaborative childcare activities. The authors discuss the challenges and solutions of co-designing a socio-technical approach aimed at facilitating socially innovative childcare models, and how the Families Share approach, based on technology-supported co-production of childcare, may provide a new sustainable welfare model for municipalities and companies with respect to life––work balance.

The authors discuss the challenges and solutions of co-designing a technological tool aimed at facilitating socially innovative childcare models, and how the Families Share approach may provide a new sustainable welfare model for municipalities and companies with respect to work–life balance.

As a main difference with state-of-the-art proposals, Families_Share is aimed to provide support to networks of parents in the organization of self-managed activities, this way being orthogonal with respect either to social-network functionalities or to supply and demand services. Furthermore, Families_Share has been based on a participative approach for both the ICT platform and the overall structure.

The purpose of this study is yield insight into how cities can optimize citizen involvement in the co-development of citizen services by providing the rights tools, knowledge and resources.

By conducting a case study analysis of the city of Ghent, this study investigates how users are engaged in the development of mobile applications on a city-hosted platform.

Findings show that public service delivery, related to the urban space, can be co-designed between the city and its citizens, if different toolkits aligned with the specific capacities and skills of the citizens are provided.

Data were collected between August 2012 and December 2013. Some preliminary findings are presented on the (design of the) dynamic co-creation ecosystem and the citizens’ capacities to participate on the city-hosted platform. In addition, while the examination is still ongoing some insights can be offered in the learning dynamics underpinning how the cities are setting up such a bottom-up process and how local participation for different citizen groups can be optimized in the context of design capabilities and the design space.

This study yields relevant insights for policymakers, city administrations, as well as Living Lab practitioners into how public service delivery, supported by an inclusive participatory governance by design framework at the local level, can be co-designed between the city and citizens, if different toolkits aligned with the specific capacities and skills of the users are provided. By providing tailored tools, even ordinary citizens can take a much more active role in the development and appropriation of their urban space and generate solutions from which both the city and citizens’ everyday life can possibly benefit.