How we work with living labs

A critical living lab strategy mobilises collaborations between science and society as a way of experimenting with new processes, constellations of actors and methods that are otherwise often impossible to implement in typical urban environments. The value of a critical living lab approach lies in the opportunities it creates for real change by revealing and criticising underlying operational mechanisms and thus challenging the status quo.

Living laboratories offer a welcome approach to change management and joint knowledge building to influence a sustainable future. Although living laboratories can take many forms and be defined in different ways, they always reflect an interest in open research environments that explore the interface between society and science in real time.

Living laboratories also share certain key characteristics. They contribute to urban transformation, experimentation is a central research method, transdisciplinarity is a fundamental research method, long-termism, scalability, and transferability of results are central goals, and learning through real-time reflexivity is an important objective.

The purpose of living laboratories is thus to experiment with new processes and methods that would otherwise be impossible in conventional urban environments and to carefully monitor the social and physical effects of these process experiments to provide a robust, transferable knowledge base for further learning.

In addition to addressing specific local challenges, such as improving energy efficiency in building operations or promoting less polluting transportation options, living labs can serve as platforms for visioning processes to define needs, what progress means, and how to achieve it, with the power to stimulate change beyond their boundaries.

As such, living labs are an important mechanism through which universities can contribute to a broader societal transition to sustainability.