136
L. A. Verhoef et al.
Living Lab projects within an institution, support monitoring, reflection and learning from projects, and facilitate communication with stakeholders, and the sharing of
practices and learning between peers across the globe. As a living shared, framework
and learning system, the framework will adapt and develop over time and within different contexts. To provide feedback and fast (practical) learning from users, the
system will be further developed to facilitate transparent peer reviewing.
Keywords Living labs · Co-creation · University sustainability
1 Introduction
There is increasing emphasis on the need for universities, or more generally institutions of higher education (HEI) around the world to play an increasingly important
and critical role in society’s movement towards a more sustainable future. HEIs as
institutions with diverse missions and large estates are well placed to contribute to
this agenda in unique ways, through: their education; their research; their wider community involvement, including business, government and community stakeholders;
through their estate; and through the integration of all four of these areas. The substantial size of these institutions, often equivalent in area, population, and activities,
to the size of a small (or not so small) town, as well as mostly part of a city system,
creates an imperative to improve the sustainability of the estate and operations of the
university campus.
Whilst the integration of the estate, education, research and wider community
aspects within a HEI provide opportunities to use the campus to research and trial
more sustainable solutions, and for the outcomes and processes of this research to
be used in diverse ways to educate the HEI and wider community about sustainable solutions. The university campus and in some cases as well its neighbourhood
therefore becomes a test bed, or ‘living laboratory’ (from now, ‘Living Lab’), where
solutions to increase the sustainability of the university estate and operations are
researched and trialled, and integrated into education. The Campus as Living Lab
framework seeks to leverage the maximum benefit to sustainable practice across all
areas of a university’s mission and operations.
The Living Lab approach aims to use research conducted within the university
aimed at advancing sustainability principles across different levels of impact: the
HEI’s estate and operations; the educational curriculum; across the university and
wider community; and society. To advance successfully the integration of sustainability principles across our campus operations and the built environment, we must have a
deeper understanding of what works and what does not work. To successfully advance
the integration of sustainability principles within the educational programmes and
wider student (and staff) experience of the HEI, we must know what processes lead
to desirable educational outcomes, and how best to integrate the research process
and sustainable estate product most effectively into these areas. To bring forward the
integration of sustainability principles within the wider communities of HEIs, we
L. A. Verhoef et al.
Living Lab projects within an institution, support monitoring, reflection and learning from projects, and facilitate communication with stakeholders, and the sharing of
practices and learning between peers across the globe. As a living shared, framework
and learning system, the framework will adapt and develop over time and within different contexts. To provide feedback and fast (practical) learning from users, the
system will be further developed to facilitate transparent peer reviewing.
Keywords Living labs · Co-creation · University sustainability
1 Introduction
There is increasing emphasis on the need for universities, or more generally institutions of higher education (HEI) around the world to play an increasingly important
and critical role in society’s movement towards a more sustainable future. HEIs as
institutions with diverse missions and large estates are well placed to contribute to
this agenda in unique ways, through: their education; their research; their wider community involvement, including business, government and community stakeholders;
through their estate; and through the integration of all four of these areas. The substantial size of these institutions, often equivalent in area, population, and activities,
to the size of a small (or not so small) town, as well as mostly part of a city system,
creates an imperative to improve the sustainability of the estate and operations of the
university campus.
Whilst the integration of the estate, education, research and wider community
aspects within a HEI provide opportunities to use the campus to research and trial
more sustainable solutions, and for the outcomes and processes of this research to
be used in diverse ways to educate the HEI and wider community about sustainable solutions. The university campus and in some cases as well its neighbourhood
therefore becomes a test bed, or ‘living laboratory’ (from now, ‘Living Lab’), where
solutions to increase the sustainability of the university estate and operations are
researched and trialled, and integrated into education. The Campus as Living Lab
framework seeks to leverage the maximum benefit to sustainable practice across all
areas of a university’s mission and operations.
The Living Lab approach aims to use research conducted within the university
aimed at advancing sustainability principles across different levels of impact: the
HEI’s estate and operations; the educational curriculum; across the university and
wider community; and society. To advance successfully the integration of sustainability principles across our campus operations and the built environment, we must have a
deeper understanding of what works and what does not work. To successfully advance
the integration of sustainability principles within the educational programmes and
wider student (and staff) experience of the HEI, we must know what processes lead
to desirable educational outcomes, and how best to integrate the research process
and sustainable estate product most effectively into these areas. To bring forward the
integration of sustainability principles within the wider communities of HEIs, we