Living Labs
The TU Dublin Living Lab is a way of thinking about and interacting with our campus environment. It enables the TU Dublin community and stakeholders from across society to engage with processes of innovation to achieve our Sustainability goals, and lies at the centre of TU Dublin's decarbonisation plans.
The European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) describes living labs as:
...open innovation ecosystems in real-life environments based on a systematic user co-creation approach that integrates research and innovation activities in communities and/or multi-stakeholder environments, placing citizens and/or end-users at the centre of the innovation process.
Living labs operate in many sectors and places and can address a wide range of subject areas - from culture and creativity to energy and emerging technologies. They can be a mechanism for transformation, enabling stakeholders to navigate complex systems and to more successfully innovate and implement change.
What is the TU Dublin Living Lab?
The TU Dublin Living Lab is a localisation of this idea to the TU Dublin campus environment. Its objective is to enhance campus sustainability and to enable progress towards our Climate Action Roadmap targets, through engaging the campus community in living lab activities, learning and experimentation.
How can I interact with the TU Dublin Living Lab?
Check-in on this page to learn about living lab activity at TU Dublin.
- Research: Attend our Living Labs and Research workshop delivered in collaboration with Research & Innovation
- Education: If you are interested in Learning in a Living Lab please get in touch
- Operations: If you have a project idea you would like to develop through the TU Dublin Living Lab please get in touch
The Grangegorman Community Garden
The new Grangegorman Community Garden on the Grangegorman campus, is a collaborative garden project between TU Dublin, Dublin 7 Educate Together National School (D7 ETNS), the Grangegorman Development Agency (GDA), Workday, with support from Hooke and MacDonald.
Green-Campus Living Lab
To animate the TU Dublin Living Lab, Green-Campus project ideas can be developed and implemented as living lab projects. Read more and apply for a micro grant to potentially fund your project idea.
Living Lab
New Living Lab coming soon...
Green-Campus and TU Dublin’s Climate Action Roadmap
The An Taisce Green-Campus programme has been a front-runner in structuring an approach to enhancing sustainability since 2007. It embraces a partnership approach to environmental management, education, and action to allow campus stakeholders to engage in a meaningful way in the sustainable transition of their campus. TU Dublin’s Green Flag award in 2023 marks the significant progress made by the TU Dublin campus community through the Green-Campus programme.
Since 2007 a lot has changed, and the Public Sector Climate Action Mandate and TU Dublin’s Climate Action Roadmap (CAR) create a legally binding obligation for aspects of campus sustainability. The TU Dublin Living Lab creates a way to connect Green-Campus activities at TU Dublin to the CAR, so that they can more effectively contribute to reaching our climate action targets.
How can I interact with the TU Dublin Living Lab?
To animate the TU Dublin Living Lab, Green-Campus project ideas can be developed and implemented as living lab projects where relevant and feasible. The following living lab characteristics can be incorporated into project design:
- Real-world experimentation
- Multi-stakeholder participation
- Active end-user or campus community involvement - these can be the first adopters of the idea.
- Systematic co-creation - engaging stakeholders through all project phases. An iterative approach to innovation e.g., through prototyping or agile piloting.
- Multiple methods and tools – allowing the idea to be thoroughly explored and enabling a range of stakeholders to contribute.
Working in this way can enhance the replicability and scalability of project ideas and increase their impact. Any idea or intervention to improve campus sustainability can fit into this approach.
Two living lab templates titled TU Dublin Living Lab Project Ecosystem and TU Dublin Living Lab Project Phases have been developed by the Societal Engagement team to help plan Green-Campus Open Call projects. These can be used to sketch out the project proposal. Complete the templates as best you can, and then integrate this information into the Green-Campus Open Call project description. What next? Societal Engagement will host an information session from 10.30 to 11.00pm on Friday 25 October, 2024, to answer queries from potential applicants.
Please register for this information session here.