The V4 countries form one of the most dynamic economic regions in Europe. But economic analysts, have raised their concerns how long this relative high growth rate can be kept. Experts share the opinion that all the V4 countries should turn their strategy from resource-intensive activities toward innovation-driven industries. Improving the innovation capabilities in V4 region would be one of the key conditions for future economic growth and even for social modernization process. Recent research studies show that not only the poor linkages between the business actors and the traditional knowledge generators (researchers, universities etc.), but the failure to understand real civil users’ need can also be identified as bottlenecks of successful innovation. The market has reacted to this challenge by creating new organisations all over the world, called as Living Labs.

Living Labs (LLs)are user-centric environments for open innovation characterized by early and continuous involvement of users and by user-driven rapid prototyping cycles.