15-17 November 2021 | Online
Hacer Tercanli MSc. of Science-to-Business Marketing Research Center (S2BMRC), FH Münster University of Applied Sciences and her co-author Dr. Ben Jongbloed of Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS), University of Twente received the 2021 JoLii Conference Best Paper Award for their work on the importance and benefits of Living Labs for the higher education institutions. The authors reviewed publications published over a period of 12 years (2008-2020) on how universities shape and manage the Living Labs they are associated with, and how they align them with their core missions of education and research and - in particular - their social missions. The paper concludes that Living Labs require universities to intensify their relationships with stakeholders and work on capacity building, and focus on inter- and transdisciplinary research methodologies. The authors further point to the need for further research on the hybrid governance approaches to the Living Labs, in particular the roles and responsibilities of academics involved in managing Living Labs or similar initiatives.
The conference is annually organised by Sino-Finnish Joint Learning Innovation Institute (JoLii), based in Tampere University. This year the conference theme has been "Education and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)", that became the centre of the keynote speeches, panel discussions and paper presentations over three days. The international JoLii Conference Best Paper Award is awarded annually to three researchers for the most outstanding academic research that contribute to the discussion of education and sustainable development from theoretical, methodological, or empirical perspectives, which are of interest to education researchers, diverse academic communities and educational policymakers, administrators, and professionals.