What is a Living Lab? 

A Living Lab is a collaborative, real-world environment where innovative ideas and solutions are developed to address real-life challenges and advance sustainability goals.

A Living Lab involves multiple stakeholders so that innovation and progress can be made in a way that is collaborative, creating a space for shared knowledge, skills and experiences.   

For students, Living Labs offer valuable research opportunities, both within formal study and extracurricular activities, allowing them to apply their knowledge to real-world issues and contribute to impactful change within their institution and beyond. 

What is the University trying to achieve?  

The University has the target of net-zero emissions by 2035, as well as a 50% reduction of waste sent for incineration by 2025. The aim is to bring together research, teaching and operations to work on solutions that will support the University in achieving these goals, alongside other strategic ambitions.   

A Living Lab program will champion and test the research of our academics and provide students with the opportunity to get involved in learning and developing this research further, boosting skills, collaboration and employability.  

The Living Lab approach is not limited to the estate and technical solutions. It takes a holistic approach to sustainability issues that will enable interdisciplinary learning and research that will span across all three faculties.   

The Living Lab approach provides us with a new way of working, allowing us to make decisions in a different way, to enhance how we evaluate and learn from what we do and increases the value we create through our projects.  

A University of Liverpool Living Lab will be unique to Liverpool’s cultural and geographical situation by prioritising solutions for sustainability challenges faced by the wider City as well as the University and will involve local partners and communities.   

Benefits of a formal living lab programme  

1. A formally defined Living Lab project will enable improvement on social and environmental impact that has a focus on the institution’s performance as well as that of the wider local community. This would provide students with an awareness and commitment to social and environmental justice in a real-world scenario.  
2. Experiential learning deepens a student’s understanding of their subject as well as giving them chance to gain skills that will support them moving forward from their time at University.   
3. The interdisciplinary nature of living lab programmes offers the chance for students to share their skills and expertise in a way that allows them to support one another in tackling a shared challenge. This creates an opportunity to form a sense of community by focusing on an issue related to the University or City  
4. Giving students a real-world problem to investigate, using their disciplinary expertise would motivate students to continue to engage in their studies, support peers, and develop new and innovative ideas, ultimately improving the experience and outcomes of their study.   
5. Living labs utilise cross-disciplinary modules for challenges that require cross-disciplinary solutions. Having cross-disciplinary modules as part of a living lab programme would make way for more efficient use of time and resource that might typically be duplicated on campus. Shared resource and expertise also have the potential to reduce dependency on external consultancy.  
6. A synthesis between activities happening on campus and beyond that will maximise the outcomes of research  
7. Cross disciplinary and sectoral partnerships and engagement of a range of stakeholders in learning and research. Create an open-source culture, by sharing data and analysis generated.  
8. Empowers students to make a difference and in doing so, enhances their learning experience, skills and attributes.