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On September 16th and 17th, European Ulalabs partners and regional stakeholders converged in the vibrant city of Linköping for a breakout session titled, “Exploring the Role of Living Labs for Urban Sustainability Innovation,” as part of the Future Now Forum. This gathering also included a transnational coordination meeting, marking a significant milestone in our collaborative journey. Meeting in Linköping: A Beacon of Innovation Linköping, the host city for our meeting, is a beacon of innovation and sustainability. Recently awarded the European Capital of Innovation Award 2023 in the category of European Rising Innovative City, Linköping is a place where world-leading research and groundbreaking innovations are shaping a better future. The city’s university, municipality, civil society, and business community work hand-in-hand to turn innovative ideas into reality. With a population of 166,700, Linköping is Sweden’s fifth-largest city and is on a mission to become a carbon-neutral municipality. Future Visioning Workshop: Imagining the Distributed Living Lab As part of our Ulalabs project transnational meeting on Monday, September 16, we held a Future Visioning Workshop led by the DesignLab at the University of Twente. This workshop applied responsible futuring methodologies and creative exercises to collaboratively envision a shared future for the Distributed Living Lab (Lab of Labs). The DesignLab’s approach to responsible futuring is rooted in design thinking and addresses societal challenges from a societal perspective rather than a technological one. This methodology emphasizes trans-disciplinary practices, responsible design, and social involvement to drive societal impact. It encourages stakeholders to break disciplinary boundaries and become agents of societal change, using moral imagination to generate potential solutions. Imagining the Future – Dynamic, Collaborative Environment Our discussions focused on the principles and premises that should underpin the future Distributed Living Lab across various regions. A central theme in our vision for the Distributed Living Lab is inclusivity and equality. We imagined a future where anyone can participate without boundaries, ensuring that all voices can be heard and valued. This vision promotes a bottom-up approach, empowering society to take the lead in shaping the living lab environment. We explored the potential for living labs to become central hubs of innovation, led by citizens and balancing – or even disrupting – power dynamics. This vision includes creating new frameworks for living lab practices that are more accessible and less dominated by established institutions, as well as providing sustainable funding, linking people with resources, with the aim to overcome resource constraints and ensure the continuity of projects over time. By fostering a shared sense of ownership and responsibility, we can ensure that living labs remain inclusive and equitable. While virtual interactions are valuable and create new opportunities, throughout the discussions, we emphasized the importance of physical connections and face-to-face interactions. Building strong, tangible connections between different living labs and their participants can enhance collaboration and innovation. When playing with the design and model of the imagined Distributed Living Lab, using the symbol of the “babel fish,” we emphasized that communication across diverse actors is crucial, pointing to the need to facilitate not just language translation but also the translation of values and decision-making reasons. Our visions include integrating various types of nature and non-human beings as stakeholders, recognizing the interconnectedness of all life forms. Finally, given the accelerating pace of societal and environmental changes, we recognized the potential role and capacity of the living labs to respond and propose co-created solutions to those. In the afternoon, we also had a chance to visit Ebbepark district that provides a testbed for a variety of research projects, including the Climate Neutral Linköping 2030 project (see more below). Ulalabs Break-Out Session: Living Labs and Testbeds as Innovation Spaces for Sustainability Transformations
On Tuesday, September 17, as part of the Future Now Forum, we organized a break-out session titled “Exploring the Role of Living Labs for Urban Sustainability Innovation.” We had the opportunity to learn about the role and experiences with living labs and experimentation spaces from HUB B30 (Spain), Enschede (The Netherlands), Nordic Edge (Norway), and Ebbepark (Linköping, Sweden). We heard from Angela Rijnhart  on the transformation and the innovative ecosystem of the city of Enschede and the region of Twente, showcasing its different initiatives, such as Circular Textile Lab and ChallengeLab Twente . We have learned about the different spaces where the municipality and Design Lab/University of Twente are connecting scientific knowledge about citizen science and practical experiences on participation processes and creating learning communities to work together on a social and sustainable city. Torrill Steinback  from Nordic Edge , running Norway’s innovation clusters for smart city technology and AgriTech, and Innovation Centre ‘Innoasis,’ stressed the importance of cross-sectoral cooperation and shared various agile piloting (Kvikktest) projects in which sites or neighbourhoods are used as testbeds for innovation and green transition solutions, partnering with the University of Stavanger. Sergio Martínez shared the HUB30 experience in Catalonia, particularly the Vallès Labs Network, which provides spaces for participation and co-creation in which new models of open, transformative, and user-based innovation are promoted, supporting local agents in delivering transformative actions while implementing the methodology of Shared Agendas. These, supported by the RIS3CAT Strategy, aim to develop viable alternatives to unsustainable dominant practices and accelerate transitions towards a socioeconomic model aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Among the others, Sergio showcased the example of the development of the Shared Agenda to promote economic and sustainable transformation towards the goal of zero waste in the territory of the Mollet-Cerdanyola axis. With the presentation of Sara Malmgren , we had the opportunity to learn more about the experiences of Ebbepark , a recently constructed new central city district in Linköping, built and living environment that can be tested on a 1:1 scale, a physical test environment in a living district, a real-world laboratory, where new ideas and solutions from both business and academia are tested, verified, and potentially brought to market to promote social and environmental sustainability. Following the presentations, we had group discussions to identify key strategies and components, as well as the enablers and barriers for the work of Living Labs and Testbeds as innovation spaces for sustainability transformations. Among some of the enablers, participants stressed the potential opportunities that come from combining intersectionality and interdisciplinarity in the living labs, as well as the importance of facilitation roles and communication in the co-creation processes, aiming to reach the natural and inclusive engagement of all parts. Cultural differences and cooperation were also named as very strong enablers, recognising also the importance and opportunities that a potential future European Distributed Living lab could provide.   Participants acknowledged the interdependency and interconnectedness of different elements, noting that these can be both enablers and barriers, pointing out the example of funding (both material and immaterial) that could allow for a long-term perspective.
The inputs and insights gathered during the session will be analyzed in detail and will feed into the final publication of the work package focusing on the research on the status quo and perception of living labs and different experimental spaces, identifying the major challenges and success factors for the development of distributed learning communities and the strategies and approaches to foster Higher Education Institutes - community engagement that exist in each region and on a distributed level. The report will be published in the upcoming weeks.

From November 6-8, 2024, the ECIU Challenge-based Learning Event took place at UAB. The event brought together close to 30 professors and researchers from ECIU member universities, including Dublin City University (Ireland), University of Stavanger (Norway), Lodz University of Technology (Poland), Tampere University (Finland), Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona (Spain), Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (France), Hamburg University of Technology (Germany), University of Aveiro (Portugal), University of Trento (Italy) and Kaunas University of Technology (Lithuania).The training, titled “ Challenge-based Learning, Enhanced by Virtual Reality ,” aimed to foster collaboration and knowledge exchange through hands-on prototyping and virtual tools.  It focused on building capacities in the integration of Agile methods in learning and teaching, advanced strategies for creating interactive digital learning resources, and the use of digital technologies to improve learner interaction. These themes and tools were well-aligned with our project approach. Moreover, given that the event involved the ECIU educational community, it was a unique opportunity to engage with the potential end-users of the future Distributed Lab and gather their needs and ideas. On Wednesday, 6th of November, Konstantinos Kourkoutas from UAB presented the objectives of our ULALABS project, the work done so far, and our approach and considerations regarding the Mutual Learning Communities and Strategies for Engagement. He then posed the following challenge to the group:
“How can we design a hybrid, distributed, and inclusive learning space that meets the evolving needs of the ECIU, fostering innovative collaboration, problem-solving, and knowledge generation, through a shared teaching and experimentation environment?” Over the next few days, four groups composed of professors and researchers from different ECIU universities tackled this challenge. They learned about various virtual reality tools and how to use them to propose solutions. On the final day, Friday 8th of November, the groups pitched their proposals and models, providing valuable inputs and food for thoughts. While each group proposed unique solutions, focusing on different aspects of the challenge, their ideas were complementary and showcased a high level of creative thinking, system change, and design thinking. The groups emphasized the importance of creating open, safe, and inspirational spaces that foster transversal skills, transdisciplinary collaborations, and co-creation. They explored various strategies to ensure inclusiveness, aiming to engage a diverse range of stakeholders from both the academic community and beyond. This approach not only aims to bring research closer to non-researchers but also to create a more integrated and collaborative learning environment. The proposals highlighted the potential of hybrid, distributed, and inclusive learning spaces to meet the evolving needs of the ECIU community. By leveraging virtual reality tools and innovative teaching methods, the groups demonstrated how such spaces could enhance problem-solving, knowledge generation, and collaborative efforts. We will analyze the inputs from these groups and share our findings with the ULALABS community. These insights will be invaluable as we are co-creating our future vision with the community and continue to develop and refine our strategies for creating effective and engaging learning environments.

Thank you to the organizers of the event for incorporating the ULALABS challenge in the workshop and to all the participants for their great work and sharing with us the valuable inputs and vision for the future distributed Lab of Labs.

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The first output from WP2 is out! The document "ECIU POSITION PAPER ON LIVING LABS AND EXPERIMENTATION SPACES" is a result of the Workshop organized during the SMART-er Research Conference in Barcelona in Oct 2023. It includes some initial work done with the ECIU community with the objective to try to connect the results from the seed project with the initial WP of the ULALABS projects and activities. Check out the full document in the following link: LINK

SMART-er

After one year (May '22 - May '23) the SMART-er seed project Urban Transformation Collaboratory has reached its end. The work done during this year will continue during the ULALABS project during the next three years.

As part of our Work Package 2, we are currently finalizing the in-depth interviews and analysis of selected living labs, testbeds, sandboxes, and other experimentation spaces in the four regions of our project and beyond. This research will contribute to our final publication on the Status Quo Report and Best Practices Catalogue. Here are only some examples of the labs we have interviewed so far:
Sandbox Urbano de València: A City-Wide Innovation Laboratory The Sandbox Urbano de València is a pioneering initiative in the European Union, transforming the entire city into an innovation laboratory. This urban sandbox aims to provide a real-world setting for testing projects that can offer innovative solutions and positively impact the city’s economic, social, and environmental development. The ordinance regulating the sandbox was recently enacted in September this year. Key differentiators of the Sandbox Urbano de València include the concept of the entire city as a large urban laboratory, strong public-private collaboration, and the city’s role as a facilitator of innovation.  To this end, Valencia with this initiative wants to create a one-stop shop for the innovation ecosystem to simplify and streamline processes, addressing a long-standing demand from businesses and researchers. MolletLab: Integrating Maker Spaces and City Labs for Urban Solutions MolletLab emerged in mid-2022 in response to local and territorial political demands. It integrates a Maker Space and a City Lab or Living Lab, focusing on urban experimentation and addressing municipal challenges. Located in the city center, MolletLab works with diverse groups, from people with disabilities to the general public, aiming to democratize access to its resources. The lab operates with two main approaches: EspaiMaker, centered on technical production and experimentation, and City Lab, addressing social challenges like loneliness. The lab is supported by the Economic development, Open government and Innovation departments, with the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) as a key partner.
Testbed Ebbepark: Real-World Testing in Linköping, Sweden Testbed Ebbepark is located in the central neighbourhood Ebbepark in Linköping in the southern part of Sweden. The testbed is run by three municipal companies (Sankt Kors, Stångåstaden, and Lejonfastigheter) who own, manage and operate the buildings in the neighbourhood. The testbed is open to research and development projects, making it possible to test solutions, systems and products related to schools, care, businesses and housing in a real-world environment that is the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood is a newly developed area that is still under construction and the testbed has a focus on urban planning and sustainable urban development, from technical, environmental and social perspectives. Fusilli Living Lab: Transforming Urban Food Systems in Tampere, Finland The Fusilli Living Lab in Tampere, Finland, is a collaborative project involving the city of Tampere, Tampere University of Applied Sciences, the vocational school AhlmanEdu, and the non-profit company EcoFellows. The lab focuses on transforming urban food systems towards sustainability and is operating at all stages of the food system: governance, production, distribution, consumption, and waste. The Living Lab uses the city, and the facilities of the partners, as a lab for carrying out several projects related to sustainable urban food systems. Besides these projects, their goal is also to influence local policy and disseminate information for more sustainable urban food systems at a regional and national level.
Stay tuned for our final publication , where we will share comprehensive insights and valuable findings from these innovative spaces and analyse the cross-case opportunities for our Distributed Lab of labs and Learning community!

03/07/2024 Research Parch UAB Bellatera Campus UAB Barcelona, Spain You can consult the presentation from the event: You can also consult the document of the Generalitat de Catalunya to consult the base survey used and learn more about Transformative Innovation Labs and Shared Agendas at the following link: Transformative innovation labs and shared agendas RIS3CAT Monitoring Collection, no. 18

The next ULALABS multiplier event will take place during the Futures Now Forum 16-17 September Linköping, Sweden ULALABS will hold a presentation and workshop during one of the event´s breakout sessions , titled: "Exploring the role of Living Labs". A short description in continuation from the event´s website:
Through experiments in real-life environments, Linköping and three other European cities define the future. Join us as we showcase their experience and discuss the structure and role of Living Labs in driving urban sustainability innovation. Presenting the session and offering insightful perspectives are speakers from Barcelona, Stavanger, Enschede, and Linköping. Torill Hoel (Nordic Edge, Stavanger), Angela Rijnhart (ChallengeLABTwente, Enschede), Sergio Martinez (HUB 30, Barcelona), and Sara Malmgren (Testbed Ebbepark) will share their experiences and provide an inspiring point of departure for an interactive session aimed at identifying key strategies and components of Living Labs and Testbeds as spaces that facilitate innovation for sustainability transformations. This breakout session is hosted by ULALABS (University of Labs for Transformative Societal Innovation). It includes researchers from Linköping University, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, University of Stavanger, and the University of Twente, along with their regional partners and stakeholders, all members of the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU).

The next ULALABS multiplier event will take place during the Futures Now Forum 16-17 September Linköping, Sweden ULALABS will hold a presentation and workshop during one of the event´s breakout sessions , titled: "Exploring the role of Living Labs". A short description in continuation from the event´s website:
Through experiments in real-life environments, Linköping and three other European cities define the future. Join us as we showcase their experience and discuss the structure and role of Living Labs in driving urban sustainability innovation. Presenting the session and offering insightful perspectives are speakers from Barcelona, Stavanger, Enschede, and Linköping. Torill Hoel (Nordic Edge, Stavanger), Angela Rijnhart (ChallengeLABTwente, Enschede), Sergio Martinez (HUB 30, Barcelona), and Sara Malmgren (Testbed Ebbepark) will share their experiences and provide an inspiring point of departure for an interactive session aimed at identifying key strategies and components of Living Labs and Testbeds as spaces that facilitate innovation for sustainability transformations. This breakout session is hosted by ULALABS (University of Labs for Transformative Societal Innovation). It includes researchers from Linköping University, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, University of Stavanger, and the University of Twente, along with their regional partners and stakeholders, all members of the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU).

On Wednesday, 6th of November, we had the pleasure of welcoming our colleagues from Nordic Edge to the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) campus. As stakeholders in our Ulalabs project, they shared their experience and innovative practices from our recent multiplier event in Linköping back in September (read here ).
Our colleagues from Nordic Edge were participating in the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona. Taking advantage of their presence in the city, we were delighted to show them around the UAB campus. We explained the various facets of the UAB Living Campus, our challenge-based learning initiatives as part of the ECIU network, and the dynamic environment of the UAB Open Labs. Additionally, we had exchanged about our ULALABS project and HUB B30 ’s regional initiatives. It was also a fantastic opportunity to connect and exchange experiences with innovators from Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland that joined the visit. Thank you for your visit and we look forward to exploring synergies for driving the ecosocial transformations in the cities.

On Tuesday, October 22, in representation of the ECIU University Alliance the ULALABS project, participated in the first European Living Labs Hub virtual meeting, promoted by European University Alliances. The Hub aims to promote Living Labs as key drivers of innovation in Higher Education by fostering Engaged Research, including Citizen Science and innovation with society, industry, and start-ups. It also seeks to build the capacity of Higher Education to develop user-centred open innovation ecosystems and promote field-building activities through Communities of Practice and a governance structure that connects as many Higher Education Living Labs initiatives as possible across the different European University Alliances.
We had the chance to learn about the HUB's motivation and initial objectives, interact with other Living Labs and University Alliances and highlight briefly some of the work we have been doing with the ULALABS project so far. We are delighted to be part of this initiative and look forward to creating synergies with our project, as our aims and objectives align perfectly. We are excited about the collaboration opportunities ahead! Meeting Agenda