Our expertise
Co-creation and participatory approaches with older people
Applied research in gerontology and quality of life
Senior user-centredsenior user experience
Interdisciplinary approach (health, design, engineering, social sciences)
Leading innovation projects in living labs
Facilitating intergenerational communities
Our approach
A living lab rooted in the realities of older people’s lives
Founded in 2018 by three higher education institutions in French-speaking Switzerland – La Source, HEIG-VD and ECAL – the senior-lab is an innovation platform dedicated to improving the quality of life for people aged 65 and over. As a member of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL), it is part of an international movement that places users at the heart of innovation processes. As such, for the senior-lab, ‘seniors’ are anything but passive recipients; they are valuable partners, whose involvement helps to guide, test and refine the projects being developed.
Recognising that only such an approach can produce sustainable and appropriate solutions, the senior-lab also makes it a point of honour to take into account the diversity of profiles and expectations. Indeed, a 65-year-old who is still fully active does not have the same needs as an 85-year-old whose independence is compromised. The Senior-Lab takes these realities into account, whether in the choice of topics, the composition of working groups or the way in which solutions are designed.
An interdisciplinary toolkit addressing a variety of themes
To turn its ambitions into concrete projects, the Senior-Lab relies on an interdisciplinary approach. Following the example of its three founding schools, it draws on the expertise of specialists in health, design, engineering and the social sciences for each of its initiatives, and offers a rich methodological range, drawing on design thinking and applied research. Co-creation workshops, focus groups, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, user testing: each tool is chosen according to the project’s needs and the participants’ profiles.
The topics addressed by the Senior-Lab cover a broad spectrum: adapted housing and accommodation, soft mobility, violence prevention, the use of digital technologies, and combating negative perceptions of ageing. Projects such as MoDoS (soft mobility for older people), the Digital-Facile Platform and the 2030 Housing and Care Model illustrate this variety, as well as the commitment to treating ageing as a global societal issue, not merely a health one.
Some of the LAB’s projects
Digital-Facile platform
Preventing violence in older couples
CEOL-CARE
Team
Delphine Roulet Schwab, full professor at the University of Applied Sciences (HES), head of the laboratory, president of GERONTOLOGIE CH
Laurent Soldini, industrial and product designer, artistic assistant and R&D project manager at the Lausanne Cantonal Art School (ECAL)
Francesca Bosisio, full professor at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of the Canton of Vaud (HEIG-VD)
Rafael Fink, community manager