Learn about the urban living labs in the realm of innovation methodologies
The urgency of the UN global sustainability challenges to secure a clean, healthy, safe, and prosperous world for everyone and the necessity to improve material, water, land, and energy efficiency by several factors is widely acknowledged. The complexity of these challenges calls for integral, innovative, and systematic approaches to research, analysis, solution development, and application into pilots. Urban communities are excellent venues for testing, accelerating and scaling innovative solutions, and Urban Living Labs are good approaches to tackle these wicked problems.
An Urban Living Lab is a real-life experiment in which the engagement of multiple stakeholders plays a central part, above all citizens. The objective is often to develop and realise innovative urban solutions locally before a more massive scale-out is done. In this process, further innovation, co-creation, and iterations between ongoing activities are essential for all participants.
About the lecturer: Wei-shan Chen
Wei-Shan Chen is an assistant professor at Environmental Technology group, Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and a research fellow at Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS). His current research focuses on urban water infrastructure transition and the related biological processes for resource recovery and asset protection. Besides research, he also functions as an international project developer for AMS and WUR, in the fields of sustainable urban development and natural-based environmental remediation.
