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Laurea Living Labs

Circular Economy Living Lab

Laurea’s Circular Economy Living Lab brings together teaching, research and development around circular economy and sustainable development. It offers students, staff and partners opportunities to learn, develop solutions and collaborate in practical projects.

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What does the Circular Economy Living Lab do?

Laurea’s Circular Economy Living Lab brings together teaching, research and development as well as regional development around circular economy and sustainable development.
Laurea strengthens students’ competence by offering studies and learning content related to circular economy. Students can participate in development and thesis projects where they work together with Laurea’s partners and develop new solutions. The Living Lab also serves as a place where students and collaboration partners can network.

Laurea supports staff competence by offering opportunities to learn more about circular economy and to collaborate with others interested in the topic. The Living Lab gathers knowledge and expertise so that it is easy to utilize.

In addition, Laurea helps companies and organizations in the Uusimaa region develop their operations in line with circular economy principles. This happens, for example, through co-development, trainings, studies, theses and RDI projects. The Living Lab brings together research, development and different actors and enables collaboration and networking.

Collaboration models

Laurea’s Circular Economy Living Lab offers companies an open research and development platform where students, companies, researchers and developers can meet and build collaboration with a low threshold. The Living Lab actively supports a company’s development: it helps articulate challenges, find the right experts and guides the company to an appropriate form of collaboration that produces concrete value and supports circular economy goals.

Collaboration opportunities

RDI project collaboration

In RDI projects the company can develop circular economy solutions together with Laurea’s experts and a broad domestic and international collaboration network, such as the Pioneer Europe University Alliance. Projects provide support for a company’s internationalization and the opportunity to pilot solutions in real use environments by utilizing the user-driven testing and trial platforms offered by Laurea’s Living Lab network.

Student and studies collaboration

Student collaboration offers companies an agile way to examine their development challenges from fresh perspectives. Project and study assignments and theses can produce, for example, concepts, reports or quick experiments, and the Living Lab ensures the right expertise is targeted and provides support for, among other things, facilitating co-development.

Commissioned research and R&D assignments (fee-based)

Targeted research or development work can be carried out for a company’s needs, which may relate, for example, to innovating sustainable business models and responsibility communications, designing human-centered and circular-economy-based service solutions, or deepening customer and user understanding in circular economy business. The Living Lab supports in shaping the assignment and directs the work to the appropriate Laurea experts or RDI teams.

Commissioned training and competence development

The Living Lab helps companies find practical training solutions that fit the situation and strengthen staff competence in circular economy, sustainability and responsibility. Trainings can be targeted theme days, coaching sessions or broader learning packages that support a company’s strategic objectives and change needs.

Open morning coffees

The Circular Economy Living Lab’s virtual and open morning coffee events provide companies with an easy way to stay up to date on current circular economy topics, hear expert presentations and get acquainted with the Living Lab’s activities. The events create a low-threshold opportunity for networking, preliminary idea sparring and finding possible student or RDI collaboration paths.

What benefits does Living Lab activity bring to your organization?

Development of strategic circular economy and service solutions

The Living Lab provides municipalities and cities a channel to develop and test their climate and circular economy objectives together with researchers, users, students and regional actors. It enables organizations to explore solutions that support nature positivity, resource wisdom, waste reduction and carbon neutrality, and to shape concrete measures through project collaboration. The combination of research, development and service environments facilitated by the Living Lab can help develop operational models related to circular economy, procurement and user-driven services that can be piloted before wider deployment. A guided process saves an organization time and resources while keeping ideation purposeful and on schedule.

Pilot opportunities in real environments

Services, concepts and new operating models can be tested at Laurea campuses and in the physical and digital environments of the Living Lab network in authentic user contexts. Piloting supports risk management and provides information on the functionality of solutions before decisions on broader adoption are made, making it a useful tool, for example, in urban development or service innovation.

RDI project collaboration

The Living Lab brings public actors into broad circular economy and sustainable development research, development and innovation entities, working with domestic and international partners. RDI projects can advance, for example, sustainable urban development, the green transition, sustainable digitalization and service innovations.

Strengthening competence and decision-making support

The Living Lab provides access to up-to-date research knowledge, student and training collaboration that support the competence development of public sector staff. This helps organizations anticipate changes, make evidence-based decisions and lead change processes related to the sustainability transition based on reliable information.

Networks and collaboration ecosystem

The Living Lab acts as a multidisciplinary meeting place that brings together regional, national and international actors. Public organizations can find partners, share lessons learned and connect to a broader ecosystem of sustainability and innovation activities. This strengthens regional impact and increases opportunities for long-term collaboration. The service encourages staff to participate in development and supports a learning organizational culture.

Our network

Circular economy and sustainable development

Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF)

EMF is a key international network actor from the perspective of circular economy, related business and societal transformation. The foundation has practically developed and launched the modern concept of the circular economy and brought its perspective to international policy and business. It brings together primarily business and political actors, but also research institutes and universities. EMF also conducts research, organizes networks and training, and highlights good examples.

Sustainable Development Solutions Network Northern Europe, (SDSN-NE),

A global network formed by universities and higher education institutions, of which SDSN-NE is the Nordic network. The network combines education and research collaboration to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Within the network, universities and higher education institutions’ sustainability activities are developed in terms of teaching, research and organizational environmental programmes (buildings, energy, water, waste, mobility, etc.). The Nordic network includes over 60 universities and higher education institutions.

International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN)

ISCN membership provides opportunities to utilize various resources related to teaching and sustainability activities and to share best practices among members in sustainable teaching, campus services and to organize joint events, conferences, etc.

PIONEER alliance for urban development

The cooperation aims to develop and implement international education, RDI activities and staff exchanges that promote sustainable urban development. The collaboration seeks new, creative solutions to global challenges of urban development. Key areas of teaching and research include carbon-neutral urban areas, sustainable tourism and housing, technological solutions for smart cities and strengthening resilience through safety and risk management. Central to achieving the alliance’s goals is co-development and close cooperation with cities, companies, organisations and citizens. The alliance consists of Laurea, French University Gustave Eiffel, Portuguese ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon, German TH Köln, Greek National Technical University of Athens and University of Žilina from Slovakia.

Service design

Finnish Service Alliance

The association promotes Finnish service research and increases its applicability in companies and public organizations. It also fosters cooperation and knowledge exchange between researchers and practitioners in the field and raises Finnish service research achievements to international recognition. The association contributes to the development of the service society and enhances the societal impact of service research. It organizes various events, produces publications and shares experience-based and research-based knowledge related to services.

Service Design Network (SDN)

SDN is an international professional network for service design that voluntarily organizes various meetings and discussion events annually. Laurea is a founding member of the Finnish SDN chapter, which has nearly 800 members or registered community followers. Through the network, Laurea offers students, staff and alumni new and inspiring opportunities to develop their service design skills and to be part of a professional community that develops the field.

European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL)

ENoLL is an international network of open ecosystems that includes over 150 active Living Labs. ENoLL has researched and developed co-creation in open innovation ecosystems and evaluated over 400 multi-actor open innovation and science ecosystems around the world. Laurea has been involved in developing Living Lab activities.

Would you like to organize a circular economy themed event?

The Circular Economy Living Lab space offers a versatile venue for workshops, seminars, sprints and other circular economy related events.

If you would like to organize an event or have questions related to organizing events, please contact the Living Lab’s responsible persons or send a message to: kiertotalouslivinglab@laurea.fi

Introduction to the space and ways of working

In Laurea’s Circular Economy Living Lab it is possible to work in large and small groups, either on-site or hybrid.

The space has a traditional fixed projector and sound system as well as movable workstations with HD displays and videobars. Computers can be connected to the displays and via HDMI to the videobar. There is a wall-mounted camera so the space can be filmed and the image can be transmitted in hybrid sessions. Wireless headsets (2 pcs) and table microphones (4 pcs), as well as selfie sticks, support groups’ hybrid working, allowing, for example, walkthroughs of prototypes or the results of circular economy games to be streamed from above via a phone’s mobile connection.

Presenters or session facilitators have access to two wireless microphones. Two computers can be connected to the projector simultaneously via HDMI.

The Circular Economy Living Lab is located at Laurea’s Leppävaara campus, Vanha Maantie 9, 02650 Espoo.

For more information, contact

  • Markku Anttonen

    markku.anttonen@laurea.fi

    +358 50 409 8195

  • Saara Gröhn

    Service Designer

    saara.grohn@laurea.fi

    +358 40 668 4891

  • Sini Maunula

    Specialist

    sini.maunula@laurea.fi

    +358 9 886 871 72

    Read more

News

Circular economy research and development projects