Digitalization is transforming different areas of our lives, our work and our economies, ranging from
new needs, new products and services to new organizational forms and business models. Small and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are also affected by these changes and consequently need to acquire new skills and cross-industry knowledge in order to remain competitive. So-called open innova-tion ecosystems and user-centred methods (e.g. living labs) can make an important contribution by using external know-how cooperatively in order to align new products and services with the needs of customers and thus significantly accelerating innovation processes.
ACSELL(Accelerating SME innovative capacities with the Living Lab approach) is an Interreg Europe
project coordinated by the University of Tübingen, which addresses these challenges together with
the partner regions of Flanders (BE), Timis (RO), Northern Denmark (DK), Friuli Venezia Giulia (IT),
Scotland (UK) and Ljubljana (SL). Through joint exchange of experience events and the targeted iden-tification and transfer of good practices, the 1) political and infrastructural framework conditions for SMEs are to be improved, 2) political decision-makers, innovation intermediaries and SMEs are to be sensitized to open innovation processes and the living lab approach and, last but not least, 3) innova-tion capacities of SMEs are to be strengthened.