Beyond passive support: a human - centred Living Lab approach to self-creation.

I am a PhD researcher, educator and Living Lab facilitator from Poland, working at the intersection of education, social innovation and human-centred approaches.

I am affiliated with the University of Lodz and Centrum Futurum in Lodz. At the university, I conduct my doctoral research, while Centrum Futurum - an educational and therapeutic organisation supporting children with autism and their families - provides the real-life environment in which I develop PARDA and carry out the implementation component of my doctorate.

PARDA is a Human-Centred social Living Lab co-created with parents of children with autism. It is grounded in their lived experiences and designed to create conditions for parental self-creation. Parents do not simply test a predefined solution or receive suport - they actively co-create the intervention while simultaneously becoming active participants in their own process of change. Importantly, self-creation is not imposed as an explicit goal: it may emerge through reflection, experience and participation without necessarily being consciously recognised by participants as it unfolds.

This represents a shift beyond passive support: from providing solutions for people towards creating conditions in which people can actively participate in shaping both the intervention and their own process of change.

A Human-Centred Living Lab perspective is central to my work. I see Living Labs not only as environments for testing and developing solutions, but as spaces where people actively shape what is being created while also having the opportunity to transform themselves through the process. Their lived experiences, values and agency become the starting point for both innovation and personal change.

While PARDA currently focuses on parents of children with autism, I would like to explore the potential of this approach for other groups experiencing boundary situations and significant life transitions.