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Remining-Lowex was a research, development and demonstration project, co-funded by the European Union’s 6th Framework Programme (FP6) CONCERTO II, which intended to use locally available, low-temperature geothermal energy from abandoned mines as energy source for heating and cooling of buildings. The project ran between June 2007 and June 2014, and involved two participating communities and demonstration sites, Heerlen (the Netherlands) and Zagorje ob Savi (Slovenia), and two associated communities with observer status, Czeladz (Poland) and Bourgas (Bulgaria).
Remining-Lowex aimed to link new developments to degraded industry areas
by using abandoned mines as a renewable source of energy and revitalizing the
community – also by embracing their heritage. An innovative communication
strategy demonstrated that it is possible to take into account community
emotions, including past, forgotten hardships and other socio-economic issues
of the mine-workers’ communities, to envisage an increased quality of life and
social welfare. Here, we focus in more detail on the Slovenian demonstration
case of the otherwise large-scale project.
Zagorje ob Savi – Creating Alternative Energy Futures
Zagorje ob Savi is a town in the Central Sava Valley in central Slovenia and the seat of the municipality of the same name. Today, the Zagorje ob Savi municipality is home to about 17.000 residents, while its recent history, as well as everyday life and culture, were shaped by what was once the deepest brown coal mine in Europe (262 meters below sea level). The deposits of coal were discovered in 1755, boosting the region’s economic development and remaining the area’s main economic activity until 1995, when the last mines were closed. A renewed vision of Zagorje ob Savi’s future was needed to transform it from a former industrial mining city into a liveable and sustainable European city. Among other actions, this included switching to alternative and environmentally friendlier energy sources.
The Remining-Lowex project was part of that change. The three key
clusters of project activities included construction and energy refurbishment
of public and private buildings, training, and demonstration of advanced
technical solutions in practice. Within the project, a number of public
buildings were renovated, including the local kindergarten, municipal
headquarters, and the cultural centre. In addition, over 50 percent of
multi-apartment buildings in the town of Zagorje were refurbished and the
community energy systems were expanded and modernised. Training on low exergy
technologies and utilization of renewable energy sources (RES) was prepared and
carried out for businesses, students and pupils, with the aim of expanding the
understanding of RES, rational use of energy, and low exergy technologies. The
project team also designed a mobile research unit OELA – a low-energy
self-sufficient mobile unit for demonstration of new concepts of low exergy
technologies on the basis of renewable sources, and use of mine water for
heating and cooling of residential or public buildings. The unit serves to
carry out regular events related to renewable energy and energy efficiency, and
as a demonstration and training facility. The presented technological
innovations are associated with the culture of mining, at the same time
transcending it to show and promote sustainable energy systems. The interiors
as well as the envelope of the unit mimic a mining shaft and are adapted to
mining architecture, thereby integrating the local mining heritage into its
concept and design. OLEA also demonstrates the transition between a black,
carbon-based history and a green sustainable future in the municipality and
wider region.
The Key to
Success: Multi-stakeholder and Multi-disciplinary R&D
A number
of key stakeholders were directly engaged in the project activities, including
the students and academic staff of the University of Ljubljana (Faculty of
mechanical engineering, Laboratory for sustainable buildings and environmental
technologies), the district heating utility, housing company, Zagorje ob Savi
municipality council, industry representatives, NGOs, and of course the municipality
residents.
Each
contributed with their specific expertise and context. Local council and public
services had access to local inhabitants and knowledge of specific local
challenges regarding, for instance, the environment, energy, or the existing building
fund. The council is also the local policy-maker with a level of authority,
which proved crucial in ensuring a smooth delivery of the project and creating
impact. Academic partners contributed with research, studies, and proposed
solutions to the identified challenges that were in the focus of the project,
such as sustainable energy and low exergy technologies. The University of
Ljubljana students were also involved in research and development activities:
they participated in all phases of the project, from planning, to research,
measurements, design of solutions, or acquiring offers from technology
providers. The students carried out field research as part of their lab
assignments and were regularly present at the demonstration site. Industry
partners, on the other hand, had the capacity to implement the developed
solutions in practice as innovative demonstration cases.
The key result of the REMINING project is the demonstration of retrofitting buildings and building new urban areas within old mining communities, while climatizing these buildings with locally available low-valued energy resources by an integrated design approach, based on low energy principles. Derived specific results are the improvement of spatial planning, environmental effects, and economic performance of the area by providing affordable sustainable energy supply to the new development and integral approach of (urban) development, by using attractive design and low energy costs as magnets for new businesses, and to keep existing and attract new residents to the area.
This blog article is written with reference to a good practice case study report prepared as part of the Erasmus+ University City Action Lab (UCITYLAB) Project.
The design process of an open, collaborative and innovation lab is not just a methodological issue. On the contrary, the design process in itself can set a relevant precedent for future collaborative practices in the lab. The stakeholders that will be involved, the kind of relationships established among them, or the topics opened to public debate may have an impact on how the labs will function in the future. In the following article, we expose how the design process of UAB Open Labs, that took place from January to December 2018, was carried out.
Multi-stakeholder participative approach
The UAB Open Labs follow the trail of predecessor innovation spaces/labs such as makerspaces / fab labs and living labs and adopts their main aim: providing an open space for designing, prototyping and testing collaboratively. Therefore, participation and collaboration lay in the core of the UAB Open Labs fundamental principles. Precisely for that reason the design process of the UAB Open Labs was conceived and carried out in line with these principles, deploying a multi-stakeholder participatory approach and by implicating the final user in the design from the early beginning of the process. As described in a previous article, since 2013 the UAB had already setup four thematic strategic research communities (COREs) that had activated and engaged a great part of the academic community and thus could serve as the base for the co-creation process. The existence of these communities provided two identifiable advantages: i) a recognition and identification of needs and capacities of faculties and research groups based on the functioning of the COREs the previous years ii) an acquainted community that could be invited, engaged and make participant in this new endeavour that they would ultimately be the beneficiaries of.
A third factor to take into consideration was the existence of the UAB Smart Campus Living Lab (member of EnoLL since 2014) that had been functioning for some years already on an experimental basis. The creation of the Open Labs was ideated precisely as a pragmatic step for the further development of the Smart Campus Living Lab, where they the Open Labs would serve as the operating branch of the Campus Living Lab, reinforcing its stature and capacities, and increasing its potential impact as an innovation and technology transfer tool while at the same time helping to impulse even further the collaboration potential within the COREs and the university community as a whole.
The first step in any participatory process is answering who should be invited to participate. In this regard, it should be noted that UAB Open Labs have some relevant differences with other labs that should be taken into account when answering this question. Unlike other open labs, UAB Open Labs are located inside a university campus; not in a neighbourhood nor in any other “real life” setting, so the community at stake was very specific and of high educational level. Nonetheless, UAB Open Labs are not located inside the academic traditional closed labs scheme and proposed to go beyond that. These characteristics make UAB Open Labs a particular case situated in between universities and cities. In other words, UAB Open Labs are bringing academic labs and open labs together; establishing a new mixed space between them and defining a new way of doing things in an academic setting. This peculiarity determined which actors could get involved in its design process. In any open lab the Quadruple Helix principle establishes that companies, public administration, academia and citizens should be brought together to seek solutions for the urban challenges that concern them. Nevertheless, UAB Open Labs set up a quite more complex scenario, where any stakeholder linked to the university can become a possible user, as well as anyone outside university borders.
Therefore, the whole university community together with near local and regional administrations, citizens and other universities were called to participate in the design process; enabling multiple and diverse actors (students, professors, researchers, librarians, neighbours, etc.) to work together. After this wide call, at the end of the design process, approximately 137 people were involved,most of them from the UAB community but also relevant external participants. As the attendance data shows, the entangled map of stakeholders was a challenge itself, adding complexity to the process, but at the same time presented a great opportunity to work with and for the special diversity and talent present within the campus community.
Co-creation and collaborative methodologies
As was exposed in previous paragraphs, in line with Open Lab’s approach
and aims, the design process was based on participative methodologies. It was conducted throughout three different stages, which had different
aims and targets.
The first stage (January – March 2018) consisted of three co-design sessions, where the whole net of stakeholders where invited to participate. Each workshop had a concept that guided the objectives and participative techniques: “sympathy”, “inspiration” and “prototyping”. That is, during these workshops, stakeholders shared their interests and get to know each other. Moreover, the workshops allowed to collect suggestions to define the functions, aims, governance and spaces of the labs. Additionally, during this phase specialized visits to relevant Labs in the territory were realised with the academic community.
After these workshops, in the subsequent phase (May – December 2018) two commissions/ working – action groups were created in order to bring the ideas and suggestions collected to reality. These commissions aimed to define clearly the characteristics of the future labs and advance with operational steps to make them reality. The First Commission worked on the regulations, governance, community and virtual platform; and the Second Commission oversaw the infrastructures, tools and machines, spaces and furniture. Both Commissions met periodically to plan and draw all the labs characteristics. Although the call was also open to the whole community, the Commissions were formed by stakeholders more closely related with the UAB Open Labs organization. The loss of participation during a co-design long process is one of the main challenges that this kind of experiences must face. Even so, it should be noted that a massive participation may hinder the decision-making process.
Finally, once the design was almost closed, two last co-creation meetings were celebrated to draw the physic composition of the labs (furniture, lights and other features). Both meetings took place in the space where the labs will be located, which facilitated the ideation exercise. In this case, the attendants were almost entirely from the university community.
Towards a conceptualization of the UAB Open Labs model
One of the singularities of the UAB Open Labs
is precisely the starting point that we have just described: to a large extent,
these Labs have been configured as a result of a participatory process of co-creation that was opened to the entire
university community and which also involved other agents of the territory,
both public and private. So, these labs, which are open spaces for co-design
and co-creation, have been themselves co-designed and co-created; it is,
itself, a singularity.
To what extent the future practices performed at
the UAB Open Labs will be influenced by this singularity, or how the governance
of the Labs will be impacted by the transversality and horizontality with
which, from the beginning, the Labs were conceptualized, are just some of the
many questions that still remain to be answered.
In fact, the first two physical spaces of the UAB Open Labs (Design Lab and Digital Lab) were inaugurated in November 2019 but the Lab model in itself is supposed to remain open, to accommodate non-traditional or singular ideas of value that could be incorporated. However, it is possible to identify two more characteristics that, together with the singularity mentioned earlier, are drawing a singular model of an Open Lab which will be more clearly defined during the functioning of the Labs from now on:
The first characteristic is that the UAB Open Labs have re-appropriated some conceptualizations that initially came from makerspaces and other manufacturing / tech community spaces. The Labs are conceptualized as open spaces for testing and prototyping, where innovation is fostered through co-creation and co-design practices which turn around the “ideas” and the “doing”. And, more specifically, “Doing-It-With-Others” (DIWO), since the starting point is that the potential of “making” is amplified when people meet with other people in spaces provided with helpful technologies to materialize projects but, above all, where people meet other people to collaborate, design and create together. Thus, on one hand, these spaces promote innovation based on co-creation and co-design practices (Anderson, 2012). And on the other hand, these practices turn around the concept of “doing”: manipulating, testing, experimenting and prototyping. In this sense, the prototype forms the base of the maker culture, as it is “doing” and “manipulating” how different attempts are given to answer the questions that people ask themselves (Corsín, 2014). The construction of significance around the object, then, goes beyond its consideration as a simple “good” or “product” (Dougherty, 2012), since the object´s creation process in itself has agency and value.
The second characteristic is that, conceptually, the UAB Open Labs model falls close to the description that Lhoste and Barbier (2016) placed on FabLabs when they analyzed them from the point of view of Oldenburg’s “third spaces” (1997): “a singular form of collective and distributed open innovation“, a new form of social organization in which the socio-technical practices performed are related to cooperation, collaborative generation of knowledge and collective innovation. As in the Labs studied by these authors, the UAB Open Labs accordingly try to generate symbolic open spaces that favor sociability, sharing and collaboration. For that reason, the physical locations of the LABs were chosen based on criteria such as visibility, proximity to flows and accessibility.
Contributions of the model
As it was mentioned in the beginning, the point of departure for the UAB Open Labs was the thematic research communities (COREs) that had already been articulated within the university community and the context of the Smart Campus Living Lab. While the thematic communities (COREs) ensured that a wide co-designand a co-creation participatory process could take place ,the Smart Campus Living Lab provided the base requirements and an operative frame for the Open Labs, as well as a testbed for the produced solutions. And, as we also stated, there is a clear transition from DIY (Do-It-Yourself) to DIWO (Do-It-With-Others) in the configuration and launching of the UAB Open Labs. Perhaps, as could be understood from the text of Lhoste and Barbier, one of the contributions of Open Labs to innovation could be found just in these two aspects: i) how the Lab has been put in place and ii) how these conditions related to participation, collaboration and collective encounter, have been maintained. If so, the conceptual model of UAB Open Labs could notably contribute to achieve new comprehension of how Open Labs could contribute to social innovation and related processes, especially with relation to academic environments and communities.
Article written in collaboration with the research group Barcelona Science and Technology Studies Group (STS-b)
WEB
Open Labs
https://www.uab.cat/open-labs/
Barcelona Science and
Technology Studies Group
https://barcelonasts.wordpress.com/
REFERENCES
Anderson, C. (2012). Makers: The
New Industrial Revolution. London: Random House Business Books.
Corsín (2014). Introduction:
The prototype: more than many and less than one. Journal of Cultural Economy
7 (4), 381-398
Dougherty, D. (2012). The maker movement. Innovations, 7(3), 11–14.
Lhoste, É. & Barbier, M. (2016). FabLabs: L’institutionnalisation de
Tiers-Lieux du « soft hacking ». Revue d’anthropologie
des connaissances, vol. 10, 1(1), 43-69.
Oldenburg, R. (1997). The great good place: cafés, coffee shops,
community centers, beauty parlors, general stores, bars, hangouts, and how they
get you through the day. New York, Marlowe & Company.
Degraded industrial regions – such as Zasavje in Slovenia with its former coal mines – are faced with social, economic and environmental challenges, such as unemployment, pollution and brain drain. To prosper, these areas need fresh ideas, bold visions and industrial restructuring, developed in partnership with local industry, community and citizens. The RUARDI project was a university-industry collaboration project involving an interdisciplinary student research team. It was conducted over a period of five months in 2015 and implemented within the Creative Path to Knowledgeprogramme of the Public Scholarship, Development, Disability, and Maintenance Fund of the Republic of Slovenia.
RUARDI established cross-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder cooperation between different Faculties and research institutes of the University of Ljubljana, the city of Zagorje ob Savi (Slovenia), its local industry representatives (company Aereform), and local communities. The key aim was to conduct an interdisciplinary study which would provide recommendations for enlargement, optimization and integration of the existing city airport into the local industrial environment, community and everyday life of citizens. The long-term vision was to establish an aeronautic entrepreneurial hub for high-tech innovation and multiplication of regional social-economic development.
Aeroclub Zagorje ob Savi
SMALL RESEARCH PROJECTS THAT BRING VALUABLE EXPERIENCE
The Creative Path to Knowledge programme, supported by the Slovenian Ministry of Education, Science and Sports and the European Social Fund, enhances cooperation between higher education institutions and industry, businesses, or other non-academic organisations in short-term research & development projects. The participating students thus get the opportunity to work on real-life challenges, gaining practical experience, additional knowledge, as well as competences and skills that are increasingly important for entering the job market.
The current programme (2016-2020) value is 10.625.000,00 EUR and aims to involve at least 2700 undergraduate and graduate students, as well as 1400 non-academic experts. The programme co-finances projects that are carried out in groups of 4 to 8 students co-mentored by academic and industry/non-academic mentors, and encourages the exchange of knowledge, experience and good practices. The projects can last from 3 to 5 months. University and non-academic partners have to apply for funding – if successful, the academic mentors recruit a team of students to work on the project.
REVITALISING A DEGRADED URBAN AREA
Zasavje is one of the most affected Slovenian regions – in the time of economic crisis, the unemployment rate in the region has grown considerably. Traditional industrial sectors are labour intensive and characterized by high levels of manual work and low levels of automation. In the past years, the production was globally moving to areas with cheaper labour force. These events have further aggravated the economic situation in Zasavje, causing serious economic problems, i.e. low standard of living, low income, dependence on the social welfare system, long-term unemployment etc. These kinds of areas can benefit by introducing positive visions and by enhancing new solutions and development strategies incorporating local heritage and involving their citizens as co-creators.
Air mobility and aeronautic industry can present key integrators and drivers having positive effects on the development of environment, region, local community and entrepreneurship. The RUARDI project aimed to provide a holistic solution of expanding and integrating the existing city airport into the local community’s everyday life. Three non-academic mentors from industry and research (Aereform and IRI UL), four academic mentors (University of Ljubljana), and eight students from four different Faculties within the University of Ljubljana (Faculty of civil engineering, Faculty of architecture, Faculty of social sciences and Faculty of mathematics and physics) commenced work on the RUARDI project in January 2015.
The core of the project was the students’ research and
development of solutions. Among other activities, the project team had to identify the relevant stakeholders and actors within
the local community, develop the concept and mapping, conduct research and
analysis, evaluate results and provide development recommendations, disseminate
results and participate in multi-stakeholder meetings. During this process, the
students acquired new competences and an elaborate vision of the airfield,
while the collaboration between industry and university partners supported the
exchange of knowledge and best practices. The interdisciplinary study resulted in a detailed,
153 pages long study report, written by the participating students and their
academic and industry mentors, and has provided concrete recommendations that
were later included in the city’s development strategy.
DEVELOPING SKILLS AND COMPETENCES
The learning outcomes were assessed for each student individually by the involved academic mentors, based on the activities undertaken by the student within the project and their performance. The individual assessments had to be included in the final project report, required by the funding programme. One of the most important outcomes of the collaborative project were the skills and competences developed by the involved students, including creative thinking; solving practical challenges with the solutions being feasible technically, socially, as well as financially; communication across disciplines and stakeholder groups; ability to set, formulate and implement a research process that has clear objectives and performance indicators; as well as organizational competences of working in an interdisciplinary team.
This blog article is written with reference to a good practice case study report prepared as part of the Erasmus+ University City Action Lab (UCITYLAB) Project.
MATOSINHOS LIVING LAB AIMS AT CREATING SMART, ZERO-CARBON EMISSIONS, RESILIENT, ACCESSIBLE, PARTICIPATORY AND CONNECTED NEIGHBOURHOOD
Matosinhos is a coastal city in the district of Porto. The living lab is located in a central area of the city surrounding the City Hall, where the main public services are centred, composed by several points with distinct physical, economic and social characteristics. It is an initiative of Municipality of Matosinhos, CEiiA (Centre of Engineering and Product Development), Porto Polytechnic, Metro do Porto, Efacec, among others. The overall objective of is to create a smart neighbourhood, as a low carbon space, resilient, accessible, participated and connected. It aims at testing technological solutions for low-carbon, energy efficient and reducing pollutant emissions. It acts in areas such as mobility and transport, buildings, environmental innovation and the promotion of circular economy, to decarbonize the city.
It is a project of co-creation and open innovation of products, services, software, hardware and low-carbon urban interventions, where municipalities, knowledge centres, companies, entrepreneurs and citizens interact.
Real context tests are performed for challenges like parking management, bike sharing, electrification of the fleet, traffic monitoring.
A CITIZEN-ENGAGEMENT EXPERIENCE
Matosinhos is preparing to become a living experience of what may be the cities of the future regarding the carbon intensity of daily activities. The citizens will be engaged in the creation and experimentation of cleaner and more intelligent technologies. The project also aims to promote entrepreneurship and the development of low-carbon business solutions.
In this sense, the role of the University was to develop a methodology to assess the impacts on the citizens. Indeed, the Polytechnics of Porto has created a technological tool to monitor social impact on two levels: customer perception of the use of the technologies offered by the living lab and the appropriation of the concept of “citizen centre” by them. This tool will be based on the use of the OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) cube, analysing the 3 perspectives presented of the BSC (Balanced SoreCard): customers’ perspective, learning perspective and economic-financial perspective.
MATOSINHOS LIVING LAB GOES BEYOND THE DECARBONIZATION OF THE CITY
Besides decarbonizing the city, the project’s goals include decreasing energy consumption, providing a test-bed for solutions that can be scaled to the whole city, to other cities and eventually to other countries, having a more comfortable and sustainable mobility, and promoting the use of renewable energies.
Several activities are being performed in order to achieve those goals, namely:
Development, testing and experimentation of innovative and integrated technological solutions, in real context, intersecting mobility, energy, buildings and connectivity
Promotion of strong user involvement, with the co-creation of solution
Evaluation of social adoption of these solutions
Measurement and evaluation of carbon emissions in real time powered by mobi.me (CEiiA’s mobility management platform)
Intelligent traffic monitoring in Matosinhos using radars and sensors
Placement in buses stops of real-time information monitors, managed by mobi.me, displaying the time, the atmospheric temperature and the waiting time for the incoming buses
Therefore, the project, apart from reducing the carbon emissions, intends to provide more quality in public spaces, more energetic efficiency, better life quality inside public building, improvement of road safety, increasing connectivity between citizen and all agents, and promotion entrepreneurship and new businesses creation related to low carbon solutions (development of new products and services). How? With auto sustainable lamps that measure carbon emissions, with pavement that reduces vehicle speed without drivers’ intervention, with a bike sharing system connected to the public transport system with a real time measurement of CO2 emissions spared, with an autonomous robot to support urban cleaning, among other activities and tools.
This blog article is written with reference to a good practice case study report prepared as part of the Erasmus+ University City Action Lab (UCITYLAB) Project.
MAIN PARTNERS
Featured picture retrieved from https://www.cm-matosinhos.pt/
An initiative by the Chalmers University of Technology, Challenge Lab is a collaborative project that aims to reinforce students and the university as active part within local and regional ecosystems. It exists around the facilitation of direct conversation amongst stakeholders that, led by the students’ initiative, intend to identify contemporary issues and potential points of leverage for future action. This multidisciplinary cooperation tries to introduce systemic change in the university structure, bridging the gap between education and utilization.
Linked to their Master Thesis, participating in the Lab does not entail extra credits for its participants. Instead, it offers students the opportunity to develop their understanding of the complexity of societal challenges, applying their own vision for a sustainable future and engaging with industry, academics and municipalities to navigate the intricacies of their topic, and strengthen the accuracy of their line of questioning. Priority is given to the adequate definition of the issue, over the potential delivery of specific solutions.
Challenge Lab appeared in 2013 as a response to the resistance of societal actors to deeply engage in the conversation to solve modern urban issues. Inspired by a water management project completed in Barcelona, Prof. John Holmberg proposed the creation of an independent body within the university to promote the development of concepts in pursuit of sustainable development. This autonomy from the traditional university structure aims to combine expertise from a variety of disciplines in order to tackle complex issues such as urban mobility, waste production, housing or clean energy. One of the unique characteristics of Challenge Lab is the introduction of students as neutral, unthreatening intermediaries to drive the conversation, with the hope that business, industry, researchers and municipalities would play a more active role without the need to protect their own financial or intellectual stake. Innovation is enhanced by strict criteria of multidisciplinary research, where pairs of students allocated to specific topics are always from different academic backgrounds. This diversity aims to reflect the complexity of urban challenges, encouraging students to develop a collaborative mindset.
HOW IS THE MASTER’S THESIS COMPONENT STRUCTURED?
The Master Thesis Lab complements the standard Master Thesis module, and offers a co-creative environment for students to deliver a research project with real life impact. Each thesis is completed in pairs, accepted by the departments of Architecture and Civil Engineering; Engineering for Sustainable Development; Mechanical, Automation, Naval and Industrial Design Engineering; and Technology and Learning. It is also accepted by the Gothenburg School of Business, Economics and Law. This joint research method is considered to increase the quality of the thesis.
The semester prior to the beginning of the programme, students are introduced to fundamental sustainability principles, encouraging their own understanding of the topic and exposing them to concepts that will inform their thesis. This course, called ‘Leadership for sustainability transitions’, is part of the department of Space, Earth and Environment, and its completion increases the probability for students to be accepted to the Master Thesis Lab. Access to the programme is via open application in September-October, including a motivation statement.
After screening and a series of interviews, acceptance of candidates aims for a diverse range of students, with different background and with a flexible approach to modern urban issues.
HIGH IMPACT AND RECOGNITION OF THE PROGRAMME
The development of the Master Thesis Lab allows students to tackle modern issues while considering a wider range of perspectives. Thanks to the implementation of multidisciplinary approaches, and the focus on systems innovation, students develop a deeper understanding of the complexity of social challenges allowing for more inclusive and comprehensive research. This holistic model, and the iterative process with academics and practitioners help students deliver research that is relevant and with high level of applicability. Despite the focus of Challenge Lab being centred around the conversation between stakeholders, the consistent engagement of businesses and municipality creates an opportunity for the outcome of research projects to be developed and implemented.
With regards to the dialogue between researchers, industry and municipality, the more casual debate led by students facilitates an increase in the engagement by external stakeholders. Not being subject to the formal requirements of institutionalized exchange, representatives of businesses and governing bodies perceive the Lab as a place to discuss modern issues, support the student community and access an innovative source of ideas.
Challenge Lab received the Green Gown Award 2016, in the category of Student Engagement for Europe. These awards are organized by the Global Universities Partnership on Environment and Sustainability (GUPES), and supported by United Nations Environment Programme and the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC).
This blog article has been produced as part of the Challenge Lab Case Study Report of the UCITYLAB Project Case Study Collection.
The Ghent Urban Academy of the Ghent University, Belgium has been working on to unite all urban stakeholders, including academics, researchers, and students as knowledge generators, along with non-academic actors to support the development of an ecologically sustainable and socially just city of Ghent. This noble cause is underpinned with a solid purpose to create a collective learning platform for various stakeholders to tackle wicked sustainability issues.
How did it all start?
The Ghent Urban Academy has had several
triggers to launch itself as we know it, over the past years. The first trigger
has appeared in form of a think tank, called Transition UGent that was launched
in 2012 to ideate and articulate the concept of a sustainable university. The
other trigger closely followed and revealed itself as the Platform for The
Sustainable City of Ghent that allowedacademics to do
interdisciplinary research on the topic. This platform failed because a consultancy
logic became dominant and we were not able to address sustainability issues as
complex or wicked problems. The Ghent Urban Academy was launched in 2017 to
explore and address sustainability issues of the city and the university (as
living lab) attracting students and educators to participate its main
activities.
What does the academy offer?
The Urban Academy activities are multi-faced.
It provides ‘urban academy sessions’ in the form of open seminars and workshops
that gather urban civil servants and society actors as well as external
knowledge partners. These sessions are primarily held to identify burning
issues of the city/university that can later be translated into viable research
questions for students to deal with.
The Urban Academy also offers a
2-semester elective course Sustainable Cities to students studying at
Ghent University. The core themes of the course are redefined on a yearly
basis. For example, the intake of 2018-19 was exploring the urban food
issues to later develop an urban food policy brief.
Naturally, the Urban Academy offers ‘master
thesis workshops’ on complex sustainability issues. Via these workshops, the
Urban Academy is trying to promote the idea of interdisciplinarity and
transdisciplinarity by inviting academic staff from different faculties together
with non-academic stakeholders to diversify the vector of the research at
hand.
Cui bono?
Undoubtedly, students are the immediate beneficiaries of what the Urban Academy offers, especially in terms of educational services and research. For Ghent University at large, the Urban Academy serves as a sustainability vision and initiative generator that works on breaking down the university vision into actionable steps of strategy implementation. Ghent University educators, who are facing pedagogical challenges in the light of daunting sustainability issues, get support with the implementation and conceptualization of the sustainability education in their work. Naturally, the city of Ghent is an ultimate beneficiary of all the endeavors taken by the Urban Academy to advance the wellbeing of the city of Ghent residents.
This blog article has been produced as part of the Ghent Urban Academy Case Study Report of the UCITYLAB Project Case Study Collection.
“Hub b30” is an open innovation network created to promote the collaboration, economic development and social cohesion of the territory in which the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) is located.
The B30 territory is made up of 23 municipalities in a valley that is crossed by the AP7 (B30) highway that connects the different municipalities, with an area of 485km² and has more than one million inhabitants. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it represents the main industrial agglomeration of Catalonia and Spain with almost 30,000 companies (providing occupation for almost 400,000 workers (1) located within its area.
In this sense, approximately 50 kilometers of the highway axis called B30 structure a territory of a great demographic, economic and social relevance.
In this territory a series of very singular circumstances come together that explains why it is internationally known as an innovative region (2). Not only does it have a high intensity of companies, but also a high presence of scientific-technical institutions. It hosts one of the most advanced light laboratories in the world, the Alba Synchrotron, as well as two major public universities: the UAB and the UPC. These capacities include research centers of the CSIC and IRTA; the UAB Research Park and the ESADE Creapolis business school. The possibilities of contribution of territory B30 to a socioeconomic development of Catalonia based on the knowledge economy are extraordinary precisely because of the potential for transfer of knowledge and technology that it integrates.
In this context, the strategy of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona is to play a role as a node of metropolitan knowledge. The consolidation of this paper depends, among other things, on the ability of the University to functionally integrate into the territory of which it is a part. But linking the university with the rest of the actors is not an easy task in the context of the metropolitan area of Barcelona, characteristic of its variable geographies and changing boundaries in a reality that adopts urban models in the form of a network (3).
Born from the municipal partnership ÀmbitB30, initiative Hub b30 helps UAB
to be linked locally and understands the logic of the various actors in the
territory that hosts it. The systematic interaction it maintains, likewise,
helps to determine the role of the university in the territorial network of
centers and sub-centers to which it belongs.
The Hub
b30 contributes to the UAB understanding the logic of the various actors in the
B30 territory, to which it is linked, and to determine the role of the
university in a complex network of companies, entities, centers and subcentres.
Born in 2018, the Hub B30 is conceived as a co-creation and co-creation
ecosystem inspired by the 4 propellers, where companies, research and
innovation agents, local administrations and citizens of the B30 have their
place. It offers contacts, experts, resources and services to public and
private organizations to help them detect and solve challenges in an efficient,
innovative and competitive manner. It promotes access to knowledge about
markets, financing, technology and patents; to equipment and
scientific-technical infrastructures; to advisors in innovation and entrepreneurship;
to research staff; and specialized training among others.
One of the first activities organized to promote
interaction and collaboration among local stakeholder and boost knowledge transfer
to the territory are the Hubb30 Innovation Brunches. These events are opportunities
for networking between researchers, companies, entities and users and
articulate collaborations around specific topics that combine technologies and
diverse sectors.
In each of the announcements, a practical case of collaboration between
diverse agents is presented to the public and in order to demonstrate
successful examples of technological, social, product, process, marketing and
business model innovations.
To date, the following twelve Innovation Brunches
have been celebrated:
– Sensory at the Health Service – Intelligent mobility solutions – Smart Waste Management: Industrial Symbiosis – New Pàckaging solutions for fresh foods – Digitization and Exploitation of Data in the Public Sector – Neuromarketing for Commerce – Product Innovation in Cosmetics – Big Data for the Healthcare Sector – Smart Food – Microbial Resistance – Circular Water – Gamification and Heritage
On each one of the topics, the UAB Research Park has produced an associated technological surveillance report that integrates a vision of trends and innovation around the thematic, as well as a related patent analysis. The various reports produced so far are available and can be consulted at the following URL: https://hubb30.cat/en/innovation-brunchs. The 12 Technological Surveillance Reports of the Hub b30 Innovation Brunch can also be found at https://hubb30.cat/en/innovation-brunchs.
As in these sessions, the most disruptive technologies, trends and experts
in the field are exposed, they generate a lot of interest among the business,
social RDI and social fabric of the B30 territory. Consequently, they
contribute to generating interactions that in the medium-longer term could
become consolidated cooperation in research and innovation projects. The
available data (4) confirm positive feedback from the participants that make up
the quadruple propeller of field B30. They indicate that 68% of participants
appreciate their satisfaction and efficiency between 3 and 4 points out of a
total of 4.
The logic of Innovation Brunch is “top-down”, in the sense that the proposed topics take into account the characteristics of the territory and its opportunities for research, development and innovation from a strategic viewpoint. Since 2019 however and in order to complement the action of Hubb30 with a “bottom-up” logic, differentz events were organized “on demand” by and with the agents of the territory, the Innovation Mornings. The objective of this second typology of events is to work on problems, challenges and solutions utilizing Design thinking methodologies. This line of work has been initiated this year with the following two themes:
– Mental Health and Employment – Business training needs
In essence, the Hub30 initiative is still young, but step by step recognition is being obtained both locally and supralocal and international level. Probably one of the most interesting success indicators of a hub is the quality and volume of the actors that have adhered to it or participated in the diverse activities.
Having reached the interest of RDI agents and local administrations for Hub b30, the company/industry membership phase is now underway.
Since the Hubb30 was initially created and impulsed by the Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona, the UAB Research Park, Eurecat and the B30 Area
Association to promote innovation, further key RDI actors in the territory also
decided to adhere to the HUB (UPC, Sincrotró Alba, ESADE Creapolis ) and the
key local administrations (County Council, Innovation Agency of Catalonia ACCIÓ
). In 2020 it is expected to continue growing and to gain more diversity and
efficiency with the adherence of the representatives of companies and industry of
the territory B30 to the HUB.
Sources:
Associació Àmbit B30
(2015) Estratègies per a una millora en
la competitivitat de la indústria a l’àmbit B30.
AMB (2018) Estratègia territorial de l’Àmbit B30 per
al desenvolupament econòmic inclusiu i sostenible.
Arcos(2019) Universidad, territorio y desarrollo local.
Un análisis de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona.
Santander was
chosen to become Europe’s test bed for a sensor-based smart city. The Spanish
city is embedded with more than 12,000 sensors to help the government operate
as efficiently as possible.
The gathering
of data collected by the sensors will lead to significant improvements in how
city infrastructure is used and to a better understanding of urban issues. This
unique experimental facility will be sufficiently large, open and flexible to
enable its scaling-up around the world.
The University
of Cantabria has coordinated the technical deployment of the infrastructure and
services, being responsible for technically guiding the digital transformation.
On the one
hand, the research community gets benefit from deploying such a unique
infrastructure which allows true field experiments while, on the other hand,
different applications serving citizens’ needs will be deployed – typical applications
and services for a smart city, including experimental advanced research on IoT
(Internet of Things) technologies and realistic assessment of users’
acceptability tests.
Since 2010, 12,500
sensors have been measuring the amount of trash in containers, the number of
parking spaces available, and the size of crowds on the sidewalks. Besides, sensors
were also installed in vehicles, such as police cars and taxicabs, measuring
air pollution levels and traffic conditions.
The data from
these sensors flows to banks of computers that analyse the real-time
information and give city officials the big picture, allowing them to adjust
the amount of energy they use, the number of trash pickups needed in a given
week or the amount of water to sprinkle on the lawns of city parks.
To attract the
widest interest and demonstrate the usefulness of the SmartSantander platform,
a key aspect is the inclusion of a wide set of applications. Application areas have
been selected based on their high potential impact on the citizens as well as
to exhibit the diversity, dynamics and scale that are essential in advanced
protocol solutions and will be able to be evaluated through the platform. Thus,
the platform will be attractive for all the stakeholders, e.g. industries,
communities of users, etc. that are willing to use the experimental facility
for deploying and assessing new services and applications, and Internet
researchers to validate their cutting-edge technologies, including protocols,
algorithms, radio interfaces, etc.
A scalable,
heterogeneous and trustable large-scale real-world experimental facility
The main goals
of the SmartSantander are to be a test bed for a sensor-based smart city, to
lead to a better understanding of urban issues, to fuel the use of the
Experimentation Facility among the scientific community, end users and service
providers in order to reduce the technical and societal barriers that prevent
the IoT concept to become an everyday reality, to develop new applications by
users of various types, to validate approaches to the architectural model of
the IOT, to evaluate social acceptance of IoT technologies and services and to
develop a data market place, according to the Digital Single Market principles.
Some of the
activities performed are environmental monitoring, outdoor parking management
and driver guidance, parks and gardens precision irrigation, augmented reality,
participatory sensing and joint R&D (university & industry cooperation).
The ultimate impact is to improve the city efficiency using the real data
driven from the sensors.
Awards and
recognition
Awards received by the initiative include:
Computerworld & Cio Iberoamericano 2012
ENERTIC 2015
Future Internet Award
Gobierno Abierto
Google Ciudad Digital
Impuls@ TIC
Innovación +Sostenibilidad+Red
Innovation Hub 2017: Premio a la Innovación
Transformadora
Premio “Ciudad de la Ciencia y la Innovación”
Premio Ciudadanos 2015
RFID & Wireless IoT tomorrow’ 2017: Modelo innovador en la
aplicación de la tecnología a los servicios urbanos
Master Program in
Management, Policy Analysis and Entrepreneurship in Health & Life Sciences
(further MPA) is a two-year interdisciplinary program taught at the VU
University, Amsterdam. Like many other Master programs, it requires students to
undertake internships, and submit a Master thesis upon the program completion.
MPA seeks to instil multi perspective thinking into a new generation of
researchers, policy makers and entrepreneurs who are willing to pursue their careers
in the field of health and life sciences. The programme hosts around 110
students every year, and the courses are taught in English.
To provide context, the MPA is taught at the Athena Institute, Faculty
of Science, VU University Amsterdam,
Athena’s research focuses on the interface between science and
technology (in the field of health and life sciences) and society. Athena’s
mission is to realise excellence in transdisciplinary research on innovation
and communication in the health and life sciences, with a specific focus on
processes of social inclusion and diversity. The reason behind the development
of MPA is in the complexity of societal problems that also require complex
solutions with an application of rigorous scientific principles. Such solutions
have to be based on the integrated knowledge from numerous scientific
disciplines and cooperation between a wide variety of stakeholders in society –
starting from the government, industry and societal organizations to ultimate
consumers.
The Master programme comprises the compulsory courses, electives (linked
to specialization), science courses, and two internships. In total, students
are expected to complete 120 ECTS within 2 years. Students can choose among the
five specializations: Health & Life Sciences-based Management and
Entrepreneurship; Health & Life Sciences-based Policy; Health & Life
Sciences-based Policy; International Public Health; and Community-based Health
Technologies. The purpose of the two internships is to get students exposed to
work experiences in multi-stakeholder organisations and they learn to apply the
core elements of the programme in a real-world setting.
Quality employment
after graduation
The programme is successful in broadening the outlook of students and
facilitating their development into multi-stakeholder problem-solvers in order
to address complex societal issues. After the programme students have the
knowledge, attitudes and skills to analyse complex societal issues, formulate
and implement strategies to deal with them and to effectively cooperate and
communicate both with societal actors and with researchers from different
disciplines. Another important element for success is the structure of the MPA
program that combines classroom learning with two practical experiences via
internships that allow plenty of opportunities for the students for growth, and
integration into the professional network. In addition, the enabling nature of
the local policies, fostering collaborative innovation, and consideration of
the innovation in health sciences as a priority, coupled with the institutional
culture that fosters interdisciplinary research can be considered as two major
supporting mechanisms for the successful implementation of the programme.
The programme thus has a strong impact on the employability of its
students, which also contributes to the fostering of innovation in the regional
health sector. According to the MPA programme representatives, the 95% of the
students find employment within the first year of graduation. The professional
field strongly appreciates with the quality of MPA students and graduates.
Students find their way to the job market, and of the last two cohorts of
students (n=189) only six alumni do not have a formal position.
Over the years MPA established itself as a robust and mature programme.
It has a sustainable number of students, it fulfils the expectations and
learning requirements, the teaching team is well established, highly motivated
and the prospect for graduates is very promising.
This blog
article is written with reference to the MPA Masters good practice case study
report prepared as part of the Erasmus+ University City Action Lab (UCITYLAB)
Project.
The Exchange at Knowledge Market was an interdisciplinary living lab and a research partnership between
and RMIT University in Melbourne and Lendlease, an international
property and infrastructure group. For a period of 18 months, a team of
designers, social scientists and students were embedded at Victoria Harbour in the
Docklands, a major urban regeneration project at the edge of Melbourne’s
central district, leading a series of design studios, research projects and
public engagement activities. The area presented specific challenges:
Melbourne’s Docklands had long suffered a poor reputation as a place to visit,
especially in the evenings and on the weekends, when it was perceived as
lacking liveliness and character. Lendlease had been running the Knowledge
Market as a dedicated learning hub for Melbourne’s growing knowledge sector,
connecting the precinct’s residents, workers and visitors with ideas and experiences.
Activating Victoria Harbour
The Exchange at Knowledge Market project (henceforth: The Exchange)
began in 2017 with the goal to activate Victoria Harbour. Industry partner
Lendlease wanted to draw people to the area, give them a reason to visit and
explore: they wanted to enliven the precinct in ways that extended beyond the
existing retail and restaurant outlets. Victoria Harbour is furthermore
characterised by its distinctive built form which houses corporate headquarters
and high-rise apartment complexes. These forms of contemporary architecture are
defined by the creation of complete interior environments that provide a range
of amenities within the building itself. This sets up a clearly defined barrier
between the activities of the occupants within the buildings and their
engagement with the surrounding street life.
The team from RMIT University saw a valuable opportunity to offer a
unique, real-world learning experience for their students. It also wanted to
bring design and ethnographic research about this area of Melbourne directly
into design studio teaching that responded to the Victoria Harbour precinct. Located
in an 80m2 shopfront facing a local park, The Exchange was envisioned as an
attempt to draw people to Victoria Harbour by creating more activity at
different times of day and night. It took a unique approach to activating the
urban area, combining design ethnographic research with talks, public events,
and design studios focusing on designing urban futures that were based in the
everyday lived experiences of people occupying the area.
Design Ethnographic Research Informing Living Lab Activities
A series of linked design ethnographicresearchprojects
focused on the view and aspirations of the local community, with particular
attention to how they made use of and understood their relationship with its
buildings and places. In this way, the team were able to consider propositions
for intervention or change that worked with what people were already doing or
what they valued, rather than trying to impose completely new ways of behaving
or unfamiliar understandings of the city. Ethnographic research then informed
the design of all activities delivered at The Exchange, which were thus based
in the concrete lived experiences of people in Victoria Harbour.
The activities included a full year of RMIT student design studios that
investigated and designed for urban futures, using Victoria Harbour as a living
lab for their work: this meant taking the learning and teaching process outside
of the University lecture halls. Public
workshops, forums and other events engaged directly with the community, and
that brought a range of experts to speak on some of the challenges facing cities
today. Through the public lecture series, prominent design practitioners shared
their insights with an audience made up of students, residents and professional
practitioners, while the exhibition program, associated with various Melbourne
festivals, attracted diverse crowds to The Exchange and brought their unique
outlook to ideas concerning the development of the city.
Collaborating across Sectors and Disciplinary Boundaries
As it developed, The Exchange took shape as an adaptable venue that
could cater for a multitude of events: the program of activities clearly demonstrated
what is possible when the activation of an urban area grows from the specific
conditions of a place without overly strict constraints. To allow for an
organic, bottom-up development and growth of the living lab, the project team developed
an embedded and site-specific model, where the research, teaching, and design
studios were taken outside of academia and students and researches were able to
immerse themselves in the precinct and understand it as “insiders”. The project
also took an inherently interdisciplinary approach, relying on close
collaboration amongst project leaders with disciplinary strengths in design,
creative practice and social science, which led to a creative and
innovation-oriented working culture. The Exchange also differed from more
conventional ways of conducting ‘commissioned’ research, which often includes
outcomes determined from the beginning of a contractual relationship. Because
the project’s suite of outcomes were not all entirely predictable, the
university and industry partners had to rely on the development of trust and a
strong spirit of collaboration.
The concluding event at the Exchange took place
in June 2019, with the launch of the project’s book The Exchange at Knowledge Market: An
Urban Living Lab
(Ross McLeod, Shanti Sumartojo, Charles Anderson, Natasha Sutila, Sean Hogan,
2019) and short film The Exchange at Knowledge Market(Sirap Motion Lab) in June 2019. These outputs explain the project’s
living lab model for others to adopt and take forward.
This blog article is written with reference to a good practice case
study report prepared as part of the Erasmus+ University City Action Lab
(UCITYLAB) Project and with reference to the project’s recently published book The Exchange at Konwledge Market: An
Urban Living Lab(Ross McLeod, Shanti
Sumartojo, Charles Anderson, Natasha Sutila, Sean Hogan, 2019).
La Marina Living Lab is an urban laboratory, which seeks to engage citizens in the transformation of “La Marina de Valencia”: the historic harbour of the city of Valencia. The Lab is based on a user-oriented process, in which public space is adjusted to the preferences of those who work, study and play in La Marina. Furthermore, it follows a multi-stakeholder approach, counting on the support of research organisations, public administrations, civic associations as well as the private sector.
La Marina is managed
by Consorcio València 2007 (CV07) – a
public institution, formed as an alliance between the Government of Spain, the
Regional Government of Valencia and Valencia City Council.
La Marina Living Lab does not have its own physical
building or laboratory. It is rather an initiative of co-creation and co-design
in which CV07 commits to letting the entire urban space of Valencia´s harbour
be used as a testbed for trying out new innovative projects. La Marina Living Lab is a vast and ambitious
project fuelled by the conviction that bringing all relevant stakeholders on
board is the only way public spaces can be designed in a way that truly work
for everybody.
A huge
example of university-city collaboration
La Marina was
born in collaboration with Western Sydney University (WSU), which had an
important role in the formulation of the its theoretical backbone.
The Polytechnic
University of Valencia also helped in the development of the sustainability
strategy.
Several other
educational institutions have also collaborated with La Marina. Rice School
of Architecture developed a workshop in which 9 students designed solutions
to activate old buildings from the south area of La Marina. Escuela de
Empresarios launched “Marina Challenge” to develop a strategy for La Marina
focused on 3 areas: nautical; leisure, culture and tourism; innovation,
technology and entrepreneurship. The faculty of biological sciences of
Valencia University also established a project in which students developed
ideas to improve the accessibility and use of the space. Polytechnic of
Valencia hosted a workshop in which La Marina has been involved, discussing
with 3 foreign students the possible and sustainable use for the Base Alinghi
de la America’s Cup. This University has also contributed to the ideas’
exchange between La Marina and universities from Vietnam.
Besides, La
Marina has recently realized collaborations with the Scientific Park of the
University of Valencia and the Faculty of Geography and History of
Valencia University.
La Marina
has a new vision for the future whereby both tradition and inventiveness drive
the transformation of the economy
The main goals
of the Living Lab can be described as converting La Marina into the city’s
engine for economic development through innovation, promote economic activation
of the space, creating a sustainable, inclusive and dynamic public space, and foster
citizen appropriation.
The activities
performed include events, brainstorming activities, training sessions, leisure
activities, workshops and projects, often with the collaboration of
universities from the city and beyond.
The project
attempts to respond to various challenges
First of all,
at the urban level, La Marina aspires to reactivate economically an abandoned
public space with a big potential for social use. It is recognized that such
impact will not be limited to La Marina itself but will be expanded to the
seaside area and its adjacent neighbourhoods, which were largely overlooked in
past decades.
Secondly, La
Marina aspires to create a “new story” and re-brand a “new and modern Valencia”
as a differentiation to the previous vision defined by short-sighted
construction projects, economic overspend and international events. So, this
new vision will be oriented towards people, innovation and creativity.
Thirdly, La
Marina seeks non-speculative development. Instead of the model dominated by
large-scale investment of capital and infrastructure, the new model proposed is
based on values – inclusivity, open public space, and activities or initiatives
for all citizens. Hence, the project aims to strengthen the connection between neighbourhood
associations, and the cultural and artistic vibe, as well as other social
entities, in a participative and open way.
Partners
Consorcio València 2007
Western
Sydney University (WSU)
Municipality of Valencia
This blog article is written with reference to the La Marina Living Lab Good Practice Case Study Report prepared as part of the Erasmus+ University City Action Lab (UCITYLAB) Project.
Featured picture retrieved from https://www.lamarinadevalencia.com/
Porto has been witnessing a remarkable shift in its business profile:
its innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem has been able to create
innovative companies with high employability rates. Porto can now be considered
an aggregator of innovation and entrepreneurship. In this ecosystem,
collaborative initiatives become even more important, especially when they
gather the elements of the quadruple helix.
Therefore, the emergence of the Porto Living Lab was a natural outcome of this new context we are living in and a result of a long-term partnership between the Academia and the Municipality.
Context
In October 2012, the University of Porto kicked-off the Future Cities project (a European-funded project) to expand the Center of Competence for Future Cities of the University of Porto. The goals were to unlock the full potential of interdisciplinary research in urban technologies, and to strength knowledge transfer activities in close cooperation with local and global industrial partners. Hence, the Center of Competence for Future Cities serves as an agile collaboration platform for a critical mass of scientists and engineers based at various schools of the University of Porto.
In 2013 Porto Digital, the Municipality of Porto and the University of
Porto joined efforts towards the creation of the Porto Living Lab. Porto
Digital is a private non-profit association, aiming at promoting ICT projects
within the context of the city of Porto and its metropolitan area.
Porto Living lab strongly
contributed to turning the city of Porto into a smart city and to raising its
national and international awareness in the smart cities’ domains
This living lab has allowed urban-scale experimentation and testing by
the R&D community, has enabled a free Wi-Fi service to be provided to the
public bus users in the city of Porto, engaged with end-users, and has empowered
a local start-up company to scale-up to global markets: Veniam.
Project Goals
Porto Living Lab aims to turn the city of Porto into a lab for urban
sciences and technologies for smarter cities, by providing different test beds
with a wide range of sensors and communication infrastructures. It, indeed,
comprises a network of wireless sensing and communication nodes that is
interoperable with the city’s optical fiber and Wi-Fi networks.
The living lab is creating the conditions for present and future
research and development using advanced technologies for data collection
through mobile platforms, wireless communication and large-scale information
processing.
It enables the development of research in areas such as sustainability,
mobility, urban planning and information and communication technology.
Having city-scale digital communication infrastructures, knowledge and
technologies on advanced sensing and communication technologies and political
will available, Porto Living Lab performs multidisciplinary research and
development, deployment of advanced sensing and communication technologies,
technology and proof-of-concept testing and demonstration at a city-scale,
technology transfer from academia to business, new services exploitation and
end-user engagement.
Impacts
Porto Living Lab was instrumental in placing,
not only the University of Porto, but also the city of Porto on the map of
smart cities in Europe and worldwide. The project has proven the viability of a
city-scale mesh network of connected vehicles that become part of the city
infrastructure to expand wireless coverage for a wide range of smart city
applications. In addition, Porto Living Lab led to the creation and growth of a
university spin-off company, which is successfully translating the results of
the basic and applied research into products, services, qualified jobs and
export opportunities.
This blog article is written with reference to the Porto Living Lab Good Practice Case Study Report prepared as part of the Erasmus+ University City Action Lab (UCITYLAB) Project.
In this blog article, Konstantinos Kourkoutas, Coordinator of the CORE Smart and Sustainable Cities of the UAB and Angela Serrano, Head of the Unit of Strategic Development at UAB discuss how the critical mass of research and innovation institutions at the Autonomous University of Barcelona facilitated the emergence of a number of Strategic Research Networks (COREs), including Smart and Sustainable Cities. The research on the Smart and Sustainable Cities aims to integrate the knowledge generated by disciplines involved in traditional spatial research and planning with new disruptive technologies and methodologies.
The Strategic Research Networks / CORES (Comunitat Adreçada a Repte Estratègic, in Catalan) are interdisciplinary research communities, with a flexible organization that bring together all the research groups of the different members of the UAB Sphere, in line with the objectives of the challenges outlined in the priority societal challenges of Horizon 2020, the RISCAT, and the local strategic development goals.
The CORE mission is to promote the R & D
& I capabilities of the UAB and its Sphere through the support of the
coordinated development of research and transfer strategies, with the ultimate
goal of increasing the competitiveness of the member groups, both individually
and collectively. Their
aim is to generate and promote networking, to share resources and to coordinate
actions required to effectively boost projects that may advance knowledge in
the field and promote transfer of result into society and industry. Each CORE
has a Strategic Plan and a community manager.
A Snapshot into the development of Catalonia Regional Innovation Ecosystem
The current challenge for European
public universities is to ensure that research excellence translates into an
economic, social and cultural growth for the region and that the public
research can be accountable not only to the wide scientific world but also to
the society and the respective challenges being faced.
The Regional Smart Specialization Strategies set up in
2010 by the European Commission identify priorities in which each region
believe it has potential to grow and were set up by the interaction of the
quadruple helix (government, industry, academia and society). Universities are key
actors in defining and implementing such strategies, thus they had to make an effort to draft strategic plans that enable
alignment with these policies. By taking part to the Regional
Specialization Strategy (RIS3CAT in Catalonia), the Catalan universities have
developed, for the first time, a strategic vision of the region and its key
sectors and met new partners and stakeholders in order to be able to participate
in the regional strategy programs.
The strength of the UAB proposal comes, not only from its own
capabilities, but from the singularity of the UAB Research Hub – the UAB
Sphere- in terms of critical mass. The
UAB Sphere is an ecosystem of knowledge that aggregates research and innovation
institutions contribute to socio-economic
development of the territory. Aggregation
in terms of increase of critical mass, sharing of resources, synergies, optimizing investments,
and improving the sustainability of
the system, results in an improved
competitiveness of the territory. This definition has
played an important role in the
development project “Excellence Campus UAB.”
The award of the Campus of International Excellence (CIE) to the UAB by
the Spanish Ministry of Science back in 2009, set out
the ground for the development of the current RIS3. The UAB-CIE jointly focused
on the creation of a regional plan to consolidate the centers on the UAB campus
with the technology parks, companies and local municipalities. They aimed to create
a vibrant regional hub of knowledge and innovation with a special emphasis on
specific areas of specialization that could act as motors for local socio-economic
development. The project implied, for the first time strengthening the
collaboration among all the research and innovation stakeholders of the campus
and the territory, and it represented a major shift
in the vision of the university as an integrating and fundamental part of any
regional strategy. This undoubtedly made it easier for the UAB to fit its
future activities into the Regional Strategy for Intelligent Specialization of
Catalonia 2014-2020 (RISCAT) since it coincided with actions that were driven
by the spirit of integrating strategies and aggregating the capacities that had
emerged from the UAB-CEI project.
It was already demonstrated that the
set of institutions that make up the Sphere UAB-CEI had the necessary
capabilities, both human and material, to develop successful projects in
complex and strategic areas. Also, under
the RISCAT instrument called Communities, the creation of thematic partnerships
was proposed in order to meet the regional socio-economic demands and
challenges in specific sectors. For the UAB in order to respond to
these challenges and effectively articulate its own capacities, the Strategic
Research Communities(CORE) were launched starting in
2013. The CORE networks were established based on a strategic challenge
identified at international, European and territorial level and in which the
UAB-CEI had a sufficient critical mass of research groups that covered the
entire chain of value of each area. In this sense, the UAB has defined four
COREs so far: Smart & Sustainable Cities, Cultural Heritage, Mental Health
and Education & Occupability that act in the quadruple helix frame of
territorial organization: academic field, productive sector, government sector
and civil society.
Smart and Sustainable Cities within the CORE
One of the four COREs created is the one on Smart and
Sustainable Cities. The territorial dimension of the City thematic allows for a
strong interaction between groups of the network and regional stakeholders and the
generation of knowledge and new initiatives / mechanisms that can contribute to
the sustainable development of cities in the surrounding territory. In
scientific terms, the aim was to integrate the knowledge generated by disciplines
involved in traditional spatial research and planning with new disruptive
technologies and methodologies that have emerged or are emerging and are
changing both the organizational as well as physical aspect of our cities. During
the three years in function now, natural sub-thematic groups were formed around
topics, such as circular economy and city metabolism, digital governance and
technological sovereignty, new models of productions and consumption in the
city, connected vehicles and advanced mobility, spatial data and decision
making models, Societal Perception of
Technology among others, creating over time a proper structure and
self-organization. Another important part of the CORE activity was the
articulation and interaction with the local quadriple-helix stakeholders, and
the initiation of new projects, such as the UAB OPEN LABS project, which will
be described in a subsequent article.
The COREs initiative has provoked the curiosity and
interest of many Spanish and European universities that have come contacted us
over the years to know more on how they can replicate the model. Thus, we think
it is worthwhile to be included and mentioned within the UCITY project, so more
people get inspired and start organizing and collaborating around strategic
challenges in their territories.
