Introducing Living Lab's Method as Knowledge Transfer from one Socio-Institutional Context to another: Evidence from Helsinki-Tallinn Cross-Border Region Katri-Liis Lepik (Estonian Business School, Tallinn, Estonia kats@retked.ee) Merle Krigul (Estonian Business School, Tallinn, Estonia mkrigul@gmail.com) Erik Terk (Tallinn University, Estonian Institute for Futures Studies, Estonia erik.terk@eti.ee) Abstract: The present article aims to describe the Living Lab’s method as a method innovation in institutional activities and the problems of taking this innovation into use. Possibilities to transfer the Living Lab’s method from one country, Finland, to other, Estonia, potential implementation fields and obstacles are studied. Considerations on the process of utilising the Living Lab’s method in Tallinn are given. Living Lab’s is a human-centric research and development approach in which new technologies are co-created, tested, and evaluated in the users’ own private context. This method is coming into use in several countries among which Finland is in the forefront but is not yet in use in Tallinn, Estonia. The empirical part of the research is based on the analyses of fourteen interviews conducted among Tallinn and Helsinki city officials, representatives of technology enterprises, experts of the fields that are internationally most wide-spread Living Labs' testing grounds, using structured interviews and discussions. The article concludes by discussing possibilities to use the Living Lab’s method in enhancing Helsinki-Tallinn cross-border co-operation and thus metropolitan regional integration. Keywords: cross-border co-operation, Living Lab, Living Lab’s method, open innovation, Helsinki-Tallinn Euregio, knowledge transfer, method innovation Category: M.0 1 Introduction Living Labs is a human-centric research and development approach in which new technologies are co-created, tested, and evaluated in the users’ own private context. In practice the Living Lab phenomena can be viewed in different ways, as a special environment for innovations, as a quite general approach and as a method. The process of taking it into use is a complex process with many stakeholders. In this paper, the perspective taken is Living Lab as a method with concrete characteristics. The method of Living Labs started to emerge around Europe in 2000. Presently, it is only in the process of formulation and hence listing of its main features and demands Journal of Universal Computer Science, vol. 16, no. 8 (2010), 1089-1101 submitted: 23/12/09, accepted: 25/2/10, appeared: 28/4/10  J.UCS