What is a Living Lab?

Image

SRS Living Lab research projects are a collaboration between professional services staff in SRS and student researchers. They are an authentic context for assessment that can fit anywhere there is suitable agency in a students degree, for example as a dissertation topic or in consultancy projects. Recommendations are always a key output of these projects that our colleagues can use to improve the sustainability and social responsibility of policy and operations at the University of Edinburgh. 

At the Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability, we work to meet the Sustainable Development Goals as well as our own University targets to be a zero-waste university by 2030 and a net-zero carbon University by 2040.

That is why our Living Lab projects all contribute towards at least one of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Sustainable Development Goals

Image

What makes a Living Lab project?

The term 'Living Lab' refers to the real world nature of the research undertaken. As opposed to experimentation in a traditional lab, our campus and community act as a reactive living environment to test hypotheses. Because of this, it is important researchers follow guidance from the affiliated staff member to minimize risk and harm throughout these projects. 

A Living Lab project should aim to:

• Recommend solutions to a real-life problem
• Be framed around at least one of the Sustainable Development Goals
• Create change in the researchers own lived environment. 
• Use existing and newly generated quantitative and qualitative data, embracing digital technologies where possible

Dissertation Living Labs 

If you are a MSc student and want to include sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals in your education you can apply to one of our available living lab projects or propose a project that aligns with our departments strategic priorities.

If you're successful, you'll be assigned an SRS supervisor alongside your academic supervisor. Your SRS supervisor will support you throughout the project, as set out in the memorandum of understanding below, which you'll need to complete before you start.

A key part of SRS Living Labs is that after submitting your dissertation, you'll also create a secondary output to help progress your work in non-academic settings

When you finish, we may ask for permission to share your project outputs on our website.

If you propose a project that we can't fully support due to limited capacity or low strategic alignment, we may still offer access to relevant data and a one-on-one meeting with the most suitable colleague to help you move forward.

Assignment Living Labs

If you are a teaching academic, we can provide you with Living Lab projects to embed within your courses. Living labs are currently embedded in a number of courses in both Geoscience and Edinburgh Futures Institute but we are keen to support all schools. We can support a range of collaborations such as: 

• Group consultancy projects 
• Whole cohort challenge questions

Speak to us about how to include the Sustainable Development Goals into your courses and consider joining a vibrant network of teaching colleagues who include sustainability in their teaching areas. Join the Teaching Climate and Sustainability Community of Practice.