The URB@Exp project was part of the JPI Urban Europe Pilot Call II and was active between 2014-2017. You can see the project results and publications below.
The Urban Lab kit has been designed as a tool for inspiration to help municipalities or other stakeholders in a city on their way in drafting or sharpening the outlines of an urban lab. The LAB kit helps to raise and discuss key questions that are worth asking before engaging in such an endeavour.
Visit the project website to order the kit.
The Urban Lab Kit guidelines are intended for team members and managers of urban labs and, more generally, for civil servants and facilitators in cities working with experimental urban governance processes to tackle complex challenges. They aim to support the everyday practice of collaboratively experimenting and learning how to create more sustainable and inclusive cities.
These guidelines do not provide a single definitive answer on ways to organize and run an urban lab or its experimental activities, but rather they offer, through frameworks and examples, guidance for ways to act in relation to, and reflect on, key issues.
European cities face complex economic, social and environmental challenges. To address these challenges, cities seek new approaches. A currently popular approach is urban labs (living labs and city labs), in which local governments engage in solving problems together with other stakeholders in urban development. However, clear guidelines are needed concerning types of problems for which urban labs are most suited and how urban labs can best be organised and integrated into formal local government organisations. The URB@Exp project aims to develop such guidelines by reviewing experiences of urban labs, and conducting action research in urban labs in five European cities.
URB@Exp – Towards new forms of urban governance and city development: learning from urban experiments with living labs & city labs
Duration: 2014–2017
Internet: maastrichtuniversity.nl/research/institutes/icis/research-output/urban-lab-kit
Contact: Dr. Christian Scholl, Maastricht University
E-mail: christian.scholl@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Budget: 1.676.820 EUR
Partners: Maastricht University, City of Maastricht, Lund University, Pantopicon, City of Antwerp, Malmö University, City of Malmö, Graz University, City of Graz, City of Leoben