About living labs
A living lab serves as a testing ground in which students, staff and societal partners perform real-world experiments to co-create solutions to complex sustainability related challenges.
The Centre for Living Labs at Utrecht University encourages collaboration beyond the boundaries of fields of expertise and organisations. By encouraging and facilitating the development of living labs at the university campuses, the Centre for Living Labs UU (CLU) works on connecting operational management, research, education and society.
CLU aims to serve as a front-office for academic-operational-societal collaboration, purposefully facilitating a transdisciplinary/action-based learning experience centered around sustainable development at the university.
Our living labs are based on the core attributes model developed by Claudia Stuckrath and Jesus Rosales. This model shows all the components of a comprehensive living lab, both methodologically as well as the parties that need to be involved.
Operating principles
Based on a co-creation workshop in 2021 with academic and operational staff of Utrecht University, we developed five operating principles to guide the thematic direction of our living labs.
These operating principles state that our living labs:
- are user-centered, open, transdisciplinary and real-life experiments performed by co-creating stakeholders.
- bridge theory and practice for a more profound learning experience
- influence daily routines to integrate sustainability into UU’s culture
- embody the sustainability ambitions and achievements of Utrecht University.
- offer a global perspective contributing to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals