Today as the global economy is changing, we have witnessed a dramatic shift from a production-oriented economy to a service-based economy where the primary activity is the provision of services rather than the production of goods. A developed service economy can be quite diverse with a variety of sectors. However, digital industry with a range of technological and emerging new services is now a leading sector; statistically speaking, by 2025, roughly 25% of the global economy ($23 trillion) will be generated by digital economy.

In this new dominating ecosystem, maintaining a production-based economy seems to be a very complicated matter. Nevertheless, as the recent experiences demonstrate, not only do manufacturing economies/industries not disappear, but they witness a regrowth. The application of new digital technologies (including internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), blockchain, and 5G) in oil, gas, petrochemical, and steel industries is something inevitable in the upcoming years.

Within this framework, various concepts are being developed to solve industrial problems. Out of these concepts, we focus on the notion of living-lab, an open innovation ecosystem in real environments with a leading role in developing and advancing industry.

The concept of living lab has the potential to be applied to industry in a variety of ways, but there are generally two approaches within which the notion might be applied: living lab as a tech test bed and living lab as a platform for collaboration.

Khatam University, whose motto is to be among the global pioneers in higher education and surpass Stanford University, has established a living laboratory together with Fanap Holding (Pasargad Arian Communication & Information Technology Co.) to meet the needs of various industries and to scale up innovation and businesses in Iran.