TLL Sicily: Territorial Living Lab for the Sicilian Region
TLL Sicily is the first instance of a concept we have called “Territorial Living Lab”, thatintegrally applies the LL approach to a territory and its citizens, its model of governanceand its strategic plans for the future: in essence, it can be conceived of as a new model for regional development.Description of Concept
The objective of a Territorial Living Lab (TLL) is to use ICT to develop innovativemeans of participatory strategic co-planning and territorial self-governance, underthe assumption that citizen co-responsibility and ownership, awareness of contextand implications of choices, and monitoring of the impacts of decisions taken cantogether
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generate models for sustainable spatial development. The three arenas of e-Democracy, e-Government services, and GIS-based tools forstrategic planning and environmental monitoring have been well developed to date. TLL Sicily integrates them within the Living Labs philosophy, that is as a continuouscycle permanently and ubiquitously embedded in the culture and practice of aterritory and its citizens, businesses and institutions.As governance and territorial planning are multi-level processes, the TLL modelinvolves the regional dimension in a role of strategic coordination while directlyinvolving local authorities, citizen groups and ad hoc local partnerships in actualexperimentation. In a complementary fashion, the technical platforms and servicessupporting the TLL are implemented by ad hoc partnerships between global actorsand regional research bodies together with local service providers. The end result is a significant step forward for the Living Lab model in that it appliesthe co-creation method to the higher level of the application domain space itself –strategic regional planning for sustainable development. As such, it also constitutes asubstantial innovation in spatial planning methods and practice, promising thedevelopment of a new model of governance for territorial competitiveness.
References and Track Record
TLL Sicily is organised as an open network headed by CRES for the technical ICTdimension and the Regional Department of Planning as concerns the dimension of territorial governance. The third component of the network is the set of localauthorities and agencies responsible for implementation of specific Living Labenvironments within the regional framework. Some examples:
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A fishing cooperative along the northern coast is installing broadband access for boats at sea as part of an Integrated Coastal Management scheme for local sustainable development.
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The municipalities of Bagheria, Monreale and Santa Flavia aim to set up eDemocracy platforms fordecisions concerning planning and environmental issues.
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A consortium of mountain towns near the Etna volcano are applying rural Living Lab approaches toimprove the competitiveness of local bio-agriculture and agri-tourism sectors.
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The regional MOTRIS initiative is negotiating with a range of local authorities for experimentation of anew model of “integrated relational tourism” and its related service platform.
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