GABLAB Le living lab de la Gabrielle

Inclusive Living

Regional; France

Persons with disabilities were excluded from co-developing and co-creating practices in a historically insitutionalised and hierarchical world. GABLAB is dynamic real-life test environment that promotes co-creation and open innovation between key stakeholders of the disability sector – namely users, public authorities, industry, and academia. Users and professionals play a key role in identifying existing problems and solutions. Then, working groups of users, professionals, experts, and academics, meet, a summary of their recommendations is transmitted to the competent authority for discussion. The practice is then implemented and executed on the ground and assessed for consistency.

GABLAB is innovative because it takes a concept widely used in the tech world (the living lab method) and moulds it to its needs, to create practices rather than products. An Ethical and Scientific Committee guarantees that the Living Lab method is respected. Success also lies in collaboration; its members include service users, family representatives, members of the academic community, professionals from the medico-social sector, and partner representatives. Since June 2025, GABLAB has started the evaluation phase of the working groups in order to provide factual elements linked to the implementation of solutions.

More than 250 people have already been involved in GABLAB working groups since its launch in 2023.

GABLABaims to disseminate the results they achieve through their networks at national and European level to benefit the wider community. The social engineering method they are developing should be replicable in settings serving people with different needs. GABLAB can also make available short reports that enable other service providers to apply similar practices in their environment.

https://www.centredelagabrielle.fr/