Living Lab as enabler of new technologies in Public Administrations: the B@ARCA project

The research aims to assess whether the Living-Lab methodology can facilitate the introduction of new technologies within a Public Administration (PA). Previous research explored the challenges and benefits derived from the introduction of ICT into public organizations through the presentation of qualitative case studies. None of these works evaluates if, and eventually how, the introduction of new technologies in Public Administrations (PAs) can be facilitated by the Living Lab (LL). This paper attempts to close this gap by presenting the results of B@ARCA - BIM at ARCA, a research project where the development of Building Information Modelling (BIM) based methodologies and technologies and their introduction into a Public Organization has been carried out embracing the Living Lab methodology. In detail, the project objective is to equip the ARCA agency, the authority in charge of the management of the social housing asset in the Puglia Region, with innovative technological solutions useful to improve the maintenance work of the old and great heritage. The level of acceptance of the new technology, measured through quantitative questionnaires, resulted in increased after the completion of the Living Lab development activities. These initial results may encourage public administrations to use the Living Lab to expose their employees to not just BIM but also the series of new technologies needed for the digitization of the public administration.