Towards a Learning System for University Campuses …
137
must understand how to communicate effectively with various stakeholders to boost
a socio-ecological (sustainability) transition.
Questions that HEIs must tackle, to help advance sustainability principles in society include: How do we make informed decisions that lead to decreased environmental and human health impacts locally and globally? How do we plan for our
campuses and cities to be resilient to a changing climate—today and in the future?
How can our campuses and their neighbourhoods mitigate greenhouse gas emissions
to the extent called for by the IPCC? These are the types of questions that warrant
a shared framework to advance successful living labs on campuses, globally. Universities are now poised to leverage their unique ability to be a scalable laboratory
in which to devise, pilot, implement and evaluate the best sustainable organisational
to urban scale strategies of today and the emerging next-gen strategies for tomorrow
(Newman 2018).
The concept of an HEI as a Living Lab is relevant to HEIs all across the world.
Yet the context in which HEIs exist both within and between countries varies significantly (den Heijer 2011). For example, HEIs may be city based, with buildings
distributed across a city; maybe campus based, with buildings housed within a single
(or multiple) estate; they may be urban or rural. HEIs in different climatic environments across the world also face very different sustainability issues to address; for
example, whether major energy costs are associated with heating or air conditioning. Governance structures for sustainability vary significantly between institutions,
some have Sustainability (Coordination) Offices, some have more distributed sustainability responsibilities. Cultures within HEIs in different countries also differ, as
do cultures between different HEIs in the same country. Within HEIs there are also
diverse cultures of practice, between students, academic staff and faculty, professional services support staff, and estates operations staff. Cultures may even differ
strongly within these groups for example between academic staff and faculty from
different disciplines and fields. Alongside these diverse cultural contexts there can
exist a problem of language, with diverse and contrasting terminology being used
to describe the same phenomenon within different cultural contexts. It is therefore
important that a globally useful framework is applicable and usable by people across
these various cultural divides.
In this chapter the authors propose a framework and methodology for the development of Living Labs within HEIs; and present a shared living lab framework to
achieve this, that will be open sourced and usable across a global divide. What distinguishes this approach from ‘sustainability’ research already taking place at our
universities is the opportunity at one end to recognize and identify sustainability
challenges at the campus to city scale that can catalyse applied research. On the
back end, living lab models predominantly need to engage the user base, which leads
to a quick feedback loop. Successful projects may therefore enable universities to
advance sustainability more rapidly on their campuses. This alone warrants deeper
research.
137
must understand how to communicate effectively with various stakeholders to boost
a socio-ecological (sustainability) transition.
Questions that HEIs must tackle, to help advance sustainability principles in society include: How do we make informed decisions that lead to decreased environmental and human health impacts locally and globally? How do we plan for our
campuses and cities to be resilient to a changing climate—today and in the future?
How can our campuses and their neighbourhoods mitigate greenhouse gas emissions
to the extent called for by the IPCC? These are the types of questions that warrant
a shared framework to advance successful living labs on campuses, globally. Universities are now poised to leverage their unique ability to be a scalable laboratory
in which to devise, pilot, implement and evaluate the best sustainable organisational
to urban scale strategies of today and the emerging next-gen strategies for tomorrow
(Newman 2018).
The concept of an HEI as a Living Lab is relevant to HEIs all across the world.
Yet the context in which HEIs exist both within and between countries varies significantly (den Heijer 2011). For example, HEIs may be city based, with buildings
distributed across a city; maybe campus based, with buildings housed within a single
(or multiple) estate; they may be urban or rural. HEIs in different climatic environments across the world also face very different sustainability issues to address; for
example, whether major energy costs are associated with heating or air conditioning. Governance structures for sustainability vary significantly between institutions,
some have Sustainability (Coordination) Offices, some have more distributed sustainability responsibilities. Cultures within HEIs in different countries also differ, as
do cultures between different HEIs in the same country. Within HEIs there are also
diverse cultures of practice, between students, academic staff and faculty, professional services support staff, and estates operations staff. Cultures may even differ
strongly within these groups for example between academic staff and faculty from
different disciplines and fields. Alongside these diverse cultural contexts there can
exist a problem of language, with diverse and contrasting terminology being used
to describe the same phenomenon within different cultural contexts. It is therefore
important that a globally useful framework is applicable and usable by people across
these various cultural divides.
In this chapter the authors propose a framework and methodology for the development of Living Labs within HEIs; and present a shared living lab framework to
achieve this, that will be open sourced and usable across a global divide. What distinguishes this approach from ‘sustainability’ research already taking place at our
universities is the opportunity at one end to recognize and identify sustainability
challenges at the campus to city scale that can catalyse applied research. On the
back end, living lab models predominantly need to engage the user base, which leads
to a quick feedback loop. Successful projects may therefore enable universities to
advance sustainability more rapidly on their campuses. This alone warrants deeper
research.